Fallen steelworkers mourned: 'They were fathers, mothers, sons, daughters'

United Steelworkers Local 1010, which represents steelworkers at the Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor Works in East Chicago, lost 10 members since President James Thomas was hired on in 1999.

"Those were 10 members who walked through those gates just like all of us do," Thomas said at a Workers Memorial Day ceremony at USW Local 1010 in Hammond's Hessville neighborhood Monday. "Those were 10 people who had families and goals, dreams and plans for the weekend who tragically were never able to walk back out."

Jim Wingfield, who died in 2008, was just a few weeks away from retirement.

"Behind every name is a life," he said. "Behind every life is a rip-hole reaching family, friends and us, a family that will never quite be the same again."

A total of 393 names are etched into the Workers Memorial Wall at the USW Local 1010 hall on Grand Avenue by Morton High School in Hammond. 

"Those are 393 names that never made it home," Thomas said. "That number is heavy. It is history. These people helped make this mill what it is. Their loss changed it forever. It is a reminder of how high the stakes are every day we come into these gates."

Local 1010 represents the former Inland Steel mill on the east side of the complex. Another 59 workers represented by Local 1011 lost on the west side of the mill, formerly LTV. It's a different local but the same fight, Thomas said.

Safety is more than statistics, he said.

"For me, this is as real as it gets," he said. "These are real people. We worked with them."

Two of the fatalities since 1999 were related to energy control, six involved mobile equipment and two were cutting live gas lines. Complacency kills, Thomas said.

"If we're being honest, complacency is a common thread that runs through too many of these incidents, getting too comfortable, skipping a step, trusting something that shouldn't be trusted," he said. "Most of us have been there. I will admit I have been there too. On Memorial Day in 2008, I had a partial amputation of two of my fingers because I became complacent. I fell into that trap of routine, doing something the same way I had. At one moment everything changed. I was lucky that I made it home that day. But I didn't go home the same way I came to work. It left a mark – physically and mentally. It made safety personal."

When he came home from the hospital, he was loopy from medication. But he clearly remembers the fear, confusion and worry in his kids' eyes.

"That moment hit me harder than the injury itself," he said. "It makes me think about how deep this goes. Safety doesn't stop at the plant gates. It follows us home. That is why I share my incident. It is real. These are not just policies or training slides in a PowerPoint. If you don't talk about it, you don't grow from it. They are wake-up calls. Safety has to be lived, not just talked about."

Workers Memorial Day is about grief and responsibility, Thomas said. Workers and management must come together to promote workplace safety, he said. The dead should be remembered not with just silence, but with action, he said.

Congressman Frank Mrvan said it was the responsibility of Congress to ensure steelworkers would not grieve alone and that they had access to mental health services.

Safety begins with collective bargaining, Mrvan said.

"In the beginning, where it all started with the mills, the mines, the factories, the textile factories, these big corporations had the power of money. They had the power of government. They had the power of courts," he said. "The workers didn't have that power. They were expendable. Their lives weren't important. Today, through collective bargaining, we have the ability to work with management and ownership to say we value labor and you're safe."

Collective bargaining must be protected to ensure steelworkers stay safe on the job, Mrvan said.

"What is my role as a member of Congress?" he said. "What is my responsibility? I should make sure we protect your right to collectively bargain, so you can have safe workplaces, a good living, a good retirement and good healthcare. It's also my responsibility to ensure that OSHA is funded and you have a strong labor board that looks out for you and that you have that slight edge where management understands you're not expendable. As a member of Congress, that's what I fight for to deliver to you."

USW Local 1011 President Steven Serrano said workers assembled to honor those who showed up to work but never returned home.

"They were more than names on a plaque or statistics in a report," he said. "They were fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, friends, people who laughed with us, worked beside us and shared in the struggles and triumphs of each day. There is no pain greater than the absence of someone who should still be here. These men and women did not just lose their lives. They were taken from us by accidents that should have been prevented, by hazards that should have been eliminated, by a moment's lapse in a system that must always prioritize safety over speed or profit. We say their names today not only to remember them but to reaffirm why we fight."