Workers Memorial Day ceremony in Green Bayhonors workers who died or suffered illness while on the job, April 28, 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Local officials joined community members and workers in Green Bay on Monday to commemorate Workers Memorial Day.
Each year, a ceremony is held April 28 at the Operating Engineers Local 420 Memorial honor workers who died or suffered illness while on the job. The date is significant, as the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) went into effect April 28, 1971.
“OSHA is really vital to protecting people across the country, to protecting workers in this community and across the United States of America,” Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich said.
Speakers at Monday’s ceremony said they will continue to fight to maintain and increase critical health and safety measures to save lives and prevent injuries and illnesses for members of the workforce.
“Human life is important, whether it’s at the workplace or at home. I think as a society, we’ve made slow and steady progress in making sure that people who get out of bed every morning and say goodbye to their families come home again at the end of their shift,” said State Senator Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay. “That’s through the work of a lot of people in the labor movement, a lot of people who’ve put institutions like OSHA into place to make sure that safety is the paramount value in the workplace.”
This is a part of the country where we make things for a living, that people often work with their hands, and they may be a little bit more exposed to those kind of dangers, so it’s even more important that here on this Workers Memorial Day, we remember whose who’ve died or been injured in the workforce.
112 people in Wisconsin died on the job in 2023, according to the AFL-CIO’s new report analyzing health and safety protections for America’s workers. Of those workplace deaths, 15 were from assaults and violent acts, 37 from transportation incidents, 17 from falls, 19 due to exposures to harmful substances or environments and 23 from contact with objects or equipment.
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