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Tuesday, a solitary plaintiff bagpipe cut through the midtown din as scores of union members and their supporters gathered to mark Workers Memorial Day at 345 Park Avenue, the scene of a mass shooting last summer that left four workers dead.
Over the arc of the prior year another 36 workers died while on the job in New York City. In 2024, nationally over 5,000 workers died on the job, with Black and Latino workers more likely to perish.
Last August, the prestigious Park Avenue office building was turned into a killing field when a gunman armed with an assault rifle fired 47 rounds killing NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, building security officer Aland Etienne, Julia Hyman and Wesley LePatner. Etienne, a proud member of 32 BJ SEIU, is credited with helping to reduce the casualties on that fateful day his life ended.
In the months since, thanks to a massive organizing drive, the Aland Etienne Safety and Security Act was passed by the City Council improving pay and benefits for the city's 60,000 security officers, a workforce historically underpaid often without benefits.
"Our dear brother, Aland Etienne--he tragically died while trying to stop an elevator and saving other lives--Aland is truly a hero in this city," said Israel Melendez, a 32 BJ SEIU vice-president.
While the Park Avenue murders made headlines, the organizers of the Workers Memorial Day have had to do detective work to learn the backstory to the deaths on non-union construction sites or deliversitias struck down in traffic.
"On this Worker Memorial Day I want to honor the memory of our sisters and brothers by asking why it so often takes a tragedy for things to change --more than 40 New Yorkers in one year in one city [lost their life]. Each one a full person outside of work. Each one a family member --each one a hole in the fabric of the city that will never be filled," New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Jule Su, told the somber midtown gathering. "We have laws named for workers who died but what would have happened before the tragedy."
"We are here because mother and fathers, sons and daughters, neighbors and colleagues went to work and did not come home," Charlene Obernauer, executive director of NYCOSH, told the crowd. "We lost four workers killed in a single mass shooting in midtown Manhattan on a Monday right here."
"Every loss we mark today is a loss not an abstract, it is personal, it is a family, a union, a community that will never be the same," said Janella Hinds, NYC CLC vice-president.
According to the AFL-CIO in 2024, more than 380 workers died daily prematurely from hazardous workplace conditions. Over that same year, 135,000 workers perished from occupational linked diseases. Historically, even before President Trump took office for a second time, the federal government was only spending a few dollars per worker on workplace safety and enforcement.
Things have gone from bad to worse, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit progressive think tank.
According to EPI, President Trump spent his first 100 days in office "waging a war against workers, firing tens of thousands of federal workers, and slashing the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers on federal contracts."
EPI's analysis continues. "He has also issued dozens of executive orders to roll back or review existing regulations, including an order directing agencies—including the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA)—to eliminate 10 existing protections before enacting any new guidelines."
According to EPI, the Trump administration "empowered Elon Musk—a billionaire whose own companies are under investigation for dozens of serious health and safety violations—to destroy and disable already understaffed federal agencies that prevent workplace deaths and injuries."
In April of 2025, the Trump administration announced that 1,400 staff members at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) would be cut to 150. NIOSH provides the research that guides OSHA policymaking.
A month later hundreds of positions were restored but considerable damage had been done.
Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that Trump 2.0 has seen a "substantial drop in inspections [20 percent]" of workplaces, based on internal data from the Labor Department shared with the newspaper by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
"OSHA already does so few inspections, so to pare that number back means the agency will have an incredibly reduced impact on keeping workers safe on the job,” Debbie Berkowitz, with the National Employment Law Project, told the New York Times. “And now those employers will be getting a pass.”
OSHA has just hundreds of inspectors to cover the nation's 11.6 million workplaces.
