New York, NY – With war raging in the Ukraine and in other places off the corporate media’s radar, it’s all too easy to ignore the narrative of America’s essential workers who put so much at risk to serve the nation during a once in a century mass death event that’s likely to cost more than one million Americans their lives.
As of this writing, we have no idea what percentage of Americans died as a consequence of their workplace exposure to COVID nor of the extent to which that occupational exposure undermined the health and well-being of their families.
What we do know is that this burden has been disproportionately carried by communities of color.
March 25th marks the 111th anniversary of the Triangle Fire when 146 mostly young immigrant women garment workers lost their lives in a lower Manhattan sweatshop. That tragedy sparked passage of multiple workplace fire safety rules and improved labor standards. Yet, as we pause to remember that day, let’s reflect on what our government’s pandemic failures cost workers and their families.
While our thoughts and prayers maybe for the dead, our resolve has to be for the living, especially those essential workers who are left disabled by long COVID now battling the Workers’ Compensation system.
Stuck Nation Radio will broadcast from Washington D.C, Monday March 28 at 7 a.m. (WBAI 99.5 FM) at the site of the American Federation of Government Employees Annual Legislative Conference.
The AFGE represents 700,000 federal employees at agencies like the TSA, USDA, the Veterans Administration and the Bureau of Prisons who put their lives and that of their families at risk throughout the pandemic. During COVID, the AFGE fought for PPE, contact tracing, access to vaccines and agency accountability.
Monday will be the fourth Stuck Nation Radio show during the month of March that’s been devoted to women who are reviving the American labor movement.
Guests will include Rebecca Reindel, the AFL-CIO’s director of Occupational Safety and Health and Mary Anne Trasciatti, president of the Remember the Triangle Coalition and the director of Labor Studies at Hofstra University, as well as your calls at 212-209-2877.
