Although the United States is the wealthiest country in the world, work still kills people—literally. Every day in this country, an average of 150 people die due to dangerous working conditions, and about 10,000 suffer on-the-job injuries or work-related illness.
These stats, which experts believe understate the extent of occupational injuries and illnesses because many workers are afraid to report injuries or unsafe working conditions, are worth keeping in mind on Workers’ Memorial Day, this year celebrated on April 28.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in a website post the shrubbers have not yet removed, it is “a day to honor those workers who have died on the job, to acknowledge the grievous suffering experienced by families and communities, and to recommit ourselves to the fight for safe and healthful workplaces for all workers.”
As an advocate for worker safety, I worry especially about the undocumented workers who make up a large portion of the workforce in many of the most dangerous jobs, such as construction or poultry and meat processing. These workers often live with a well-founded fear that, if they complain about unsafe working conditions or report on-the-job injuries, they will be deported. Fear of immigration enforcement chills their complaints and allows unsafe conditions to flourish.
President Trump campaigned on rhetoric that denigrated immigrants, including the now-infamous labeling of Mexicans as rapists. And in the first months of his presidency, he’s issued executive orders that seek to dramatically increase the deportation of workers, build a wall along the Mexican-U.S. border, and seriously jeopardize the nation’s refugee program.
This anti-immigrant agenda is paired with evidence that the president is, at best, indifferent to workers’ health and safety on the job. As a businessman, he was fined for safety violations at his worksites, as were his contractors and subcontractors. Already, Trump’s Labor Department has stopped publicizing fines against workplace safety violators.
Given these realities, immigrant workers rightly see themselves as threatened while the nation’s worst employers are emboldened to violate basic workplace safety standards and refuse to provide compensation when injuries occur.
These dangerous and illegal employment practices unfortunately give unscrupulous employers a competitive advantage over those employers who comply with the law and do things like provide proper safety equipment and training and take other preventive measures to ensure workers are safe.
Whatever your personal view may be on our nation’s policies toward undocumented workers, it is both short-sighted and immoral to allow these workers to risk death and serious injury on the job. When we allow undocumented workers to be taken advantage of, we actually lower working conditions across the board, for citizens and noncitizens alike. Simply put: if you protect undocumented workers from harm or illness, citizen workers benefit too.
For thousands of workers each year, immigrants and citizens, these issues are of life and death importance. On this Workers’ Memorial Day, let’s agree to support work that is safe and dignified.
Emily Tulli is a senior attorney with the Occupational Safety & Health Law Project, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C.
