The National Labor College’s (NLC) National Workers Memorial to individuals who lost their lives on the job is expected to be completed by April 28, Workers
The National Labor College’s (NLC) National Workers Memorial to individuals who lost their lives on the job is expected to be completed by April 28, Workers Memorial Day. The Silver Spring, Md., memorial will comprise 10,000-plus bricks and scores of granite benches and pavers. Over time, as remembrances are sponsored, units will be replaced with engraved bricks bearing names of those honored.
On Workers Memorial Day 2009, Bricklayers President John Flynn dedicated the first brick to Louis Mitchell, a member of the union who died in 2007. The second brick, sponsored by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, honored his father, Frank, a Pennsylvania mine worker (UMWA), who perished in 1999 of black lung disease. Among hundreds of family members, coworkers and unions making memorial contributions, one local chose to remember a Steelworker (USW) electrocuted on the job; Transit Workers (TWU) local coworkers sponsored the memory of a bus driver; and, an AFGE local honored a government rescue worker crushed in a mine rescue at Utah’s Crandall Canyon in 2007.
Memorial bricks are available for $125, pavers for $2,000, and granite benches for $10,000. More information regarding the NLC Workers Memorial, including order forms, can be found at www.nlc.edu/campus/nlc-workers-memorial.