Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Activists to Come to Historic Hearings, Make time to Participate

As you may know, two important congressional hearings will be taking
place on April 28 to consider important health and safety issues that
concern us all. In the morning at 10 AM, the Senate HELP Committee
members Senators Patty Murray [WA] and Johnny Isakson [GA] will be
hearing testimony on the role of victims and family members in workplace
health and safety issues [Family Bill of Rights] and the penalties
levied on violators of OSHA standards. We understand there may be a
simultaneous hearing in the House Education and Labor Committee and the
reintroduction of the PAWA [Protecting American Workers Act] that will
contain substantial improvements to OSHA law including increased
criminal sanctions for egregious employers.

To make the most of these hearings scheduled on Worker Memorial Day, we
are planning to have a significant number of family members who have
lost loved one in workplace tragedies in Washington DC. You can visit
*USMWF.org*to see the new Faces Campaign, which is
putting a human face on the horrific toll of workplace disasters. In
many instances this will be the first time for many of these family
members to become active in fighting for the rights of current and
future workers as a way to remember and memorialize their lost loved
ones.

We are encouraging as many activists to come to these historic hearings
on April 28 in Washington DC. *Will you make time to participate?*

In addition to other activities, we plan to have large posters of some
of the Faces to remind us all to “fight like hell for the living”.
We will inform folks of the schedule for the day as we get closer but we
are planning to meet at 8:00 am on the steps of the Frances Perkins
building at 200 Constitution Avenue, NW (on the Constitution Avenue
side) before we march collectively to the Senate and House hearing
chambers. If you are a musician and would be willing to lead us in songs
of solidarity, your guitars, banjos or other instruments would be most
welcome.

For those not able to be in DC, we hope you will send a message to you
representatives about these important issues. Please feel free to
respond if you need additional information. Please forward to other
interested activists.

In Solidarity,

Peter Dooley, Program Chair
Celeste Monforton, Section Chair

No comments:

Print Page