Trump budget cuts benefit corporations that value profits over worker lives and health

We remember a moment in 2024 when a guy in a baggy suit surrounded himself with Pennsylvania workers wearing hard hats and promised to make things better for working-class people. The baggy suit guy was running for president. We’ve heard such promises many times before, from other presidential candidates. We’ve learned to wait for the proof.

So how’s the guy in the baggy suit doing on his promise now that he’s in the White House? Let’s consider one issue: people dying on the job. We figure this is a top priority for those who like to go home to their families once they finish their workday. 

The AFL-CIO reports that 5,283 workers did not return to their homes from their jobs in 2023. For a bit of context, that’s more people than the population of Duquesne borough. Myles Sullivan, international secretary-treasurer of the United Steelworkers, broke it down this way while giving a short speech Friday morning on the steps of the USW Building in Pittsburgh:

“On average, today alone, 14 workers in this country will not return after their shift. They might be a son, they might be a daughter or a sister. Could be a brother, an aunt. Might be someone’s uncle. A father, a mother. Could even be a grandparent.”

The Trump administration’s answer to this issue is a proposal to slash $50 million from the budget of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This will mean fewer inspectors, “which is going to mean more injuries, more accidents, more illnesses,” Sullivan said.

His audience of about 100 steelworkers from the U.S. and Canada, who’d gathered for a rally to focus on worker safety, held signs reading “People Over Profit” and “Together for a Safer Workplace.” They understand workplaces can be dangerous. An explosion earlier this month at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works killed two workers and injured a number of others. Friday’s rally was planned before that disaster, but the tragedy could not be ignored. The agency investigating the explosion – the U.S. Chemical Safety Board – won’t even exist if Trump’s budget becomes reality. Its already modest budget will be zeroed out.

OSHA has been understaffed for decades, and the situation has gotten worse the past few months, thanks to the Trump administration’s assault on federal workers. Kayla Flowers, who worked more than eight years as an industrial hygienist in the Cleveland-area OSHA office before taking a job this May as a health and safety specialist with the USW, said that, with the administration’s “constant attacks on federal workers, threats to job security, staffing cuts, budget cuts and the never-ending hiring freeze, staffing at the agency has dropped to dire levels.”

“My old office is currently operating with about half of the compliance officers it normally houses,” she said. That means “no admin support staff and no area director to lead the office. And the issue is not unique to OSHA.”

She recalled a recent phone conversation with representatives of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which conducts research and makes recommendations to prevent work-related injuries and illnesses. (The AFL-CIO says an estimated 135,000 workers died of occupational diseases in 2023.)

“We were discussing some potential work with the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division, located right here in the Steel City,” she said. “The NIOSH representative stopped us and said, ‘We’re really sorry, but that division has been reduced to three people, and they’re not likely to be able to take on that work.’”

After Flowers spoke, the workers marched from the USW Building on the Boulevard of the Allies to Mellon Square Park. Their chants reflected outrage over a system, built by our elected leaders, that allows employers to prioritize corporate profits over workers’ lives, and then lets those employers off with minimal penalties when things go wrong and workers lose their lives.

“Rights before riches, no more stitches,” they chanted. “Human need, fuck corporate greed.”

Two workers at the head of the parade carried a sign bearing a statement that very closely resembled a remark earlier by Sullivan. It noted the stark difference in the manner in which the United States and Canada treat corporate leaders whose workplaces kill employees. The sign also served as an indictment of our country’s dismaying obsession with profits, no matter the costs to people and communities.

“U.S. Worker Dies, CEO pays a fine,” it read. “Canadian Worker Dies, CEO goes to jail.”

Here are a few other highlights from the event:

Shelley Savoury, unit president of USW Local 1976. She works in the marine transportation industry in Newfoundland, Canada:

“In 1992, 26 miners reported to work at the Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia, Canada. Those miners did not return home. The explosion that killed them was preventable.

“Workers raised concerns long before this tragedy ever took place, but they were ignored and they were silenced. Why do you think they were silenced? Corporate greed! Someone decided that it was their right to put profit over those people’s lives. And those 26 miners, they all had names, they all had families, and they all had futures.

“But their lives were stolen, and not by accident. They were stolen by negligence, by corporate greed. But their families, their community and the United Steelworkers — they were not silenced. They put the heartbreak into action.

“And in 2004, their fight led to the passing of Bill C-45, the law that makes corporations criminally responsible when workers die due to corporate negligence. That law exists because of their courage.”

Curtis Green, USW  Local 1123 in Canton, Ohio:

“With fewer inspections and laughable fines, billion-dollar corporations are given the green light to gamble with our lives. They’ve done the math. They know it’s cheaper to pay a tiny penalty for a dead worker than it is to install the ventilation, to repair the faulty machines, to hire adequate staff that will keep us alive.

“And why would our government enable this? Follow the money. Look at the campaign contributions. The lobbyists writing the laws. The billionaires lining the pockets of politicians when they vote to slash OSHA’s budget. It’s a vicious, corrupt cycle. And we are the ones paying for it with our health and our lives.

“But in the face of this alliance of power and greed, there is one force that they do not count on. One force that remains the last line of defense. The workers who stand in solidarity. And since the government has abandoned its duty to protect us, our unions are the ones who will step into this breach. We are fighting to balance the scales because no one else will.”

 U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, a Democrat who represents several communities in Allegheny County and all of Beaver County:

“We understand that the way we make a workplace safe is not by just asking nicely, it’s standing together to do something about it. That’s the power of what a union can be. It’s you and your brothers and sisters saying we’re not going to accept something unsafe on the job.”