Tammy has posted another edition of the Weekly Toll: Death in the American Workplace at her Weekly Toll blog. It gives short writeups of 134 workplace deaths, including the following:
- Fernando Jimenez Gonzalez, 18, drowned in a vat of sulfuric acid at the Redwood City, California circuit board manufacturing facility where he worked; he is believed to have fallen into the vat after having been overcome by fumes.
- Morris W. Moore, an 80-year-old farmer from Humboldt, Tennessee, died from injuries sustained when a tractor fell on him.
- Dianne Freeman-Green, 47, was shot during an attempted robbery at the Newport News, Viginia restaurant where she worked.
Read the full descriptions of these and other workplace deaths here. Itâs an excellent reminder of how much work we still have to do on occupational health and safety.
I wish every Member of Congress would look at Tammy’s Weekly Toll and see the names, faces and stories of death on the job in our country. One can’t but help be moved to think as a nation, we must do better to protect construction workers, truck drivers, longshoreman, nurses, store clerks, miners—all who labor—from one-the-job injuries, illnesses and deaths.
When I read Tammy’s somber collection, there is always one that particularly saddens me. This time, it was the story of Kevin Michael Wilson, 26, who was working at the Michigan Seamless Tube plant in South Lyon. The photo of Mr. Wilson reminds me of my brothers, nephews and guy friends who live in towns nearby South Lyon.
http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070927/NEWS19/709270710/1036
I believe the workers at the plant are represented by the United Steelworkers Union.