Elevating workplace safety and health issues is more important than ever. At a time of deep division, the desire for a safe and healthy workplace is something that unites people, and is important for our organizing, bargaining and advocacy.
This Workers Memorial Day, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health turn 55 years old, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is nearly 50 years old. The laws creating these agencies promised every worker the right to a safe job—our fundamental right. These laws were won because of the tireless efforts of the labor movement, which organized for safer working conditions and demanded action from the government to protect working people.
Since then, unions and their allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality—winning protections under the law that have made jobs safer and saved lives. But all of that is under attack. After years of underinvesting, the Trump administration has fired agency staff — including AFGE members, defunded and outright decimated or eliminated federal job safety agencies.
Each day, more than 380 workers are killed and more than 8,600 suffer injury and illness because of dangerous working conditions that are preventable. Job safety inspections have never been so few. As of 2025, the United States now has the lowest number of OSHA inspectors and conducts the lowest number of OSHA inspections ever. It now would take the federal OSHA 191 years to inspect every workplace once, and Congress only allows the agency to spend $3.85 protecting each worker it's responsible for.
Cuts to independent hazard investigations and coal mine inspectors take us back decades and harm workers. When no one is watching, many employers fail to do the right thing. Funding and staffing cuts will make oversight on businesses nearly impossible. Our hard-won workplace safety protections are being stripped away. Working people have fought for our rights for decades and still do every day. But now, accelerated deregulatory attacks—such as the removal of OSHA coverage, weakening mineworker silica protections and destroying the regulatory process altogether—threaten the gains we have won, and will prevent OSHA and MSHA from setting needed job safety standards that raise the floor for everyone.
Our job is not finished. We must protect the rights we have won and keep fighting for safer working conditions.
Join AFGE in recognizing Workers Memorial Day on April 28. Learn more about how we can hold the line for safe jobs at AFLCIO.org/WorkersMemorialDay.
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