Landis Larson, Bismarck

This week is Workers Memorial Day, April 28th, a day when working families, union members and labor leaders come together to remember each worker killed, injured and sickened from their jobs, and to organize for an end to these preventable deaths of our brothers and sisters.

This is a time for us to organize for a safer future for all workers. The workplace protections we have today exist because workers organized, fought and died for them. Yet each day in the United States, 360 workers lose their lives due to their job — 14 a day from injury alone — and millions more suffer from work-related injuries or illnesses.

Job safety agencies play a critical role in protecting workers from unsafe working conditions, and agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have open, active investigations against Elon Musk’s companies. Yet, Musk and his “Department of Government Efficiency”, now has access to workers’ confidential data from safety investigations, workers’ compensation claims and other filings. Talk about a fox in the henhouse. This is a serious breach of privacy that puts many workers at risk of retaliation and discourages workers from speaking out about unsafe working conditions, putting everyone at risk.

The government has a role to protect workers from unsafe workplaces, but now, our entire worker protection structure is under threat. North Dakota, one of the more dangerous states in which to work, will become even more dangerous. We will have more families grieving their loved ones to workplace injuries.

That is why we are calling on Senator Hoeven, Senator Cramer and Representative Fedorchak to demand that the Trump administration uphold the workplace protections we’ve fought so hard to secure. We hope you’ll stand with us to defend and restore the protections we need to survive.