The Owensboro Central Labor Council held its 25th annual Workers’ Memorial Day service Friday evening to Kentuckians who lost their lives on the job in 2023. During the memorial, a bell was rung as the names were called for the 49 Kentuckians who lost their lives on the job in 2023, including two people in Owensboro.
While Workers’ Memorial Day is April 28 each year, the Owensboro Central Labor Council holds its annual ceremony on the Friday closest to that date.
Donna Haynes, financial and recording secretary for the council, rang the bell as each name was read by council president Andy Meserve.
The two names from Owensboro were James “Billy” Tyler and Maikel Valdes-Diaz. Meserve said they don’t get into the details about the manners of death because the service is meant to honor the lives of those who were lost.
Chad Mills, state director of the Kentucky State Building & Construction Trades Council and a member of the Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 633, was the featured speaker for the event.
Mills said the being able to go to work daily, provide for a family, and earn a living are all part of the American dream.
“But unfortunately, there are way too many people that get up and go to work every day just like we do that don’t make it home to their families when they workday is done,” he said. For whatever reason, there was an accident and the whole world has changed for the loved ones of these workers. Life will never be the same.”
Mills said workplace safety is often taken for granted. He said that any time proposed legislation comes along that would lower safety standards, it’s about the bottom dollar for the companies involved.
“There is only one reason they want to lower the standards and that is to save money. If there is one thing that I can guarantee you, that is if they lower safety standards, more people will get hurt and evern worse, more people will be killed. THere is no amount of money that is worth someone’s life,” he said.
Workers’ Memorial Day was established on April 28, 1970, by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to recognize workers who died or suffered from exposure to hazards at work.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 1970 an estimated 38 U.S. workers suffered fatal on-the-job injuries each day and “many more endured debilitating respiratory diseases and other life-altering illnesses related to workplace exposures.”
Today, work-related injuries in the U.S. claim about 15 people’s lives a day, according to the Department of Labor. In 2022, a reported 5,486 workers suffered fatal injuries.
The Owensboro Central Labor Council held its first Workers’ Memorial Day observance in 1990 at Smothers Park. They erected the Workers’ Memorial Monument on the southeast corner of the courthouse lawn in 2002.
The monument reads: “Mourn for the dead, fight for the living. For all those who died earning a living, because all work is honorable.”
