Worker safety under attack

AFL-CIO ‘Death on the Job’ report sounds the alarm on dangerous working conditions that continue to harm workers across the U.S., and the disastrous consequences of  federal cuts

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 25, 2025) — 385 workers dead a day, and more than 6,000 injured or sickened. All told, more than 140,000 people lost their lives from traumatic injury on the job or occupational illness in 2023, and millions more had their lives forever altered by illness developed from their work.

These alarming findings come from the AFL-CIO’s “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect” report, which is released every year in the lead up to Workers Memorial Day on April 28, which recognizes the anniversary of the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The report, pulling data from the most recent year available — this this case, 2023 — tracks progress towards truly safe workplaces. While OSHA was created nearly 55 years ago, that goal is still unmet for millions of people in the United States.

Behind the statistics are real families, struggling to navigate loss of a loved one and loss of livelihoods — and for injured or ill workers, the loss of ability and the futures they’ve worked so hard for.

This grief is avoidable — we know how to keep workplaces safe. But chronic underfunding of OSHA and other agencies that protect workers keeps work dangerous and companies unaccountable. The AFL-CIO estimates that it would take 185 years for OSHA to inspect every workplace once, and notes that Congress only allows the agency to spend less than $4 protecting each worker it’s responsible for.

Undoubtedly, progress has been made in the past 55 years. In fact, fewer workers died on the job in 2023 than in 2022, due to more pro-worker policies, per the report.

But that progress is under attack, as an anti-worker federal administration undermines basic worker protections and tries to gut the public institutions that safeguard working people.

“The Trump administration and DOGE have focused on totally decimating the fabric of what makes government protections work for people through attacks on job safety, public health, union rights and the independence of federal agencies,” per the report. “In the most poignant and direct attack on worker safety, DOGE functionally eliminated the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the only worker safety and health research agency. Worker safety is not a priority for this administration.”

But workers continue to fight for their own safety, even as the federal government’s actions threaten workers’ safety and empower bad bosses to violate safety laws.

Harry Wiley, a West Virginia coal miner, is suing the federal government over it’s NIOSH layoffs which terminated the agency’s chief medical officer, who oversaw a coal mine dust lung disease screening and job transfer program which has been used to protect the livelihoods of coal miners like Wiley who are sickened on the job.

“Every worker has the fundamental right to come home safe at the end of their workday. But for too many workers, that basic right is under attack,” said Shuler, in a press release. “Workers fought and died for generations for the health and safety laws and protections we have today, and this year’s report shows we need to do even more. We can’t bring back the thousands of workers lost each year, but we can fight to prevent more devastation to working families across this country and demand that the Trump administration reverse course.”