WTF Series #7 – Memorialize This!

Workers Memorial Day in April

Can you remember ever hearing the corporate media report on “Workers Memorial Day”?  I'll bet not.  It was a day developed first by a Canadian union and later by the AFL-CIO.  In the U.S. and now the world, it is on April 28 every year, a month before that ‘other’ U.S. Memorial Day.  In the U.S. 5,147 workers died in 2017 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and 3.6 million were injured to varying degrees in 2016.  This does not include occupational illnesses, physical or mental.  I doubt it also includes heat deaths. Here is the list of 2018’s 20 most dangerous occupations - from Business Insider:

    1.    Loggers

    2.    Fishermen

    3.    Aircraft pilots and flight engineers

    4.    Roofers

    5.    Refuse/recycling handlers

    6.    Structural iron and steel workers

    7.    Truck drivers

    8.    Farmers and ranchers

    9.    Construction supervisors

    10.                       Ground maintenance workers and agricultural workers

    11.                       Mechanical supervisors

    12.                       Construction laborers

    13.                       Police and sheriff’s officers and electrical line workers

    14.                       General maintenance and repair workers

15.                       Taxi drivers

16.                       First line supervisors of grounds crews

17.                       Telecommunication line installers and repairers

18.                       Athletes

19.                       Operating engineers / equipment operators in construction

20.                       Electricians

What you notice is that nearly all of these occupations are blue collar. The rest of the list going up to #36 is nearly all blue collar too.  White collar workers in offices are not dying of paper cuts, inhaling white-out or falling onto their computer keyboards.

Oddly there seems to be 3 supervisors listed – perhaps because they are not as prepared as regular workers at a construction site.  And at #3, who knew flying a plane was so dangerous?!  At #18, athletes, these must be football / hockey / rugby players …

Of most interest is the police and sheriff deaths, at #13.  The police are in a dark 'tie' with electrical line workers - they are not #1 as you might think by the constant talk about them.  The corporate media never lets us miss the death of a police officer, while U.S. “Memorial Day” is dedicated to war dead.  These are both aspects of the U.S.’s militarist mentality.  Regular workers are never mentioned except incidentally, yet they are the ones who are ‘the fallen.’

We also saw this yesterday on July 4th when Trump saluted the military extensively, pulling the curtain away from the ‘pacifist’ image the U.S. wishes to have.   It was clear from this that dead workers don't count, nor does their 'service.'

Red Frog

July 5, 2019