Matt Perry, left, safety chair at the Tilden Mine in National Mine and Jed Perry, president of United Steel Workers Local 4974, speak at a Worker’s Memorial Day Event in Ishpeming on Tuesday. (Journal photo by Annie Lippert)

ISHPEMING — Tuesday was Workers’ Memorial Day, an international day of remembrance and action for workers who were killed, injured or made unwell by their work. An event was held at the Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum in Ishpeming to commemorate the day, as well as to honor fallen miners from the region.

Tuesday was also the 55th anniversary of OSHA.

“In 1970, the year before OSHA, there were about 14,000 workplace fatalities in the United States, along with roughly 2.5 million workplace injuries,” said Adam Saari, president of the Upper Peninsula Regional Labor Federation. “In 2025, the number was around one third of the deaths in 1970 … that means OSHA, since it was put into effect, has really saved more than 712,000 workers’ lives.”

However, Saari went on to say that, in 2025, an average of fourteen and a half deaths occurred every day of immediate causes on the job, and an additional 385 workers died every day of occupational diseases.

“We still have a long way to go in this country before we can expect every worker to come home safely every day,” said Saari, going on to reference the current federal administration and executive orders such as EO14192, signed by President Trump in January 2025, which promote deregulation.

Saari referred to federal policies like EO14192 as “anti-worker, pro-business.”

“Over the years, our progress has become more challenging as employers’ opposition to workers’ rights and protections has grown, and attacks on unions have intensified,” said Saari. “Big corporations and billionaires have launched an aggressive attack on workers’ lives and their livelihoods by repealing job safety and health regulations, promoting deregulatory initiatives, blocking funding and pulling back resources for job safety agencies, firing federal staff doing critical work to protect worker health and safety and requiring additional burdens in order to issue protections at all.”

Saari went on to speak about the Barnes-Hecker Mine Disaster, where 51 miners died in a flooded mine shaft. That disaster’s 100th anniversary is November. And while workplace safety has come a long way since 1926, workplace fatalities still happen.

“2025 was not a zero-fatality year for Marquette County,” said Saari. “We had two deaths that could have been prevented. We had a painter die in a dam in the Silver Lake Basin. We also had a lineman pass away on County Road 553.”

“The theme of this Workers’ Memorial Day is ‘hold the line,'” said Saari. “So we’re holding the line to make sure we don’t lose our safety rules on job sites. We’re holding the line to stand together in solidarity, we’re holding the line so that every worker comes home every day.”

“As of right now, we have about 700 active union employees at the Tilden Mine,” said Jed Perry, local union president for United Steel Workers 4974. While he spoke, he showed a lengthy slideshow of all of the USW workers who had died on the job in 2025. Some were as young as 20, while others were in their 70s. “We don’t do any underground mining like they used to, but we do have some of the biggest machinery in the world, definitely in North America. So it’s a constant battle every day to make sure we all go home safely at the end of our shifts.”

Jed Perry was injured while working at the mine in 2009, which resulted in him losing sensation in his right hand.

“After that, I came back to work and worked with the company, the Union Safety Department and MSHA, (and) that job is no longer an unsafe job,” said Jed Perry.

“In mining, this day carries a special weight,” said Matt Perry, safety chair at the Tilden Mine. “Mining has built this country, powered its industries and supports families and communities like ours. But it has also demanded too high of a price.

“Every miner who leaves for a shift carries with them more than a lunch bucket. They carry trust; trust their ground will hold, the equipment will operate safely, and that standards meant to protect life will be followed. When that trust is broken, the cost is measured not in tons or production numbers, but in empty seats at kitchens with their kids and family members.”

“Workers Memorial Day is not only about mourning, it’s about responsibility; responsibility to fix hazards before someone gets hurt, to recognize them,” said Matt Perry. “Reponsibility to train, inform and hold one another accountable. Responsibility to never accept that that’s the way it’s always been done.”

“Workers’ Memorial Day reminds us that every injury is preventable and every fatality is unacceptable,” said Matt Perry. “The goal is simple. Everyone who starts a shift deserves to go home healthy at the end of it. To the families who have lost loved ones, we remember them by name when we can, and by legacy always. To the miners still working today, your life is worth more than production, deadlines or profit. And to anyone here, the fight for safe mines is not over.”

Saari also showed a video created by state representatives Dave Prestin, Karl Bohnak and Greg Markkanen, who sent special tributes to those who died in the Barnes-Hecker Mine and to Jack Rantanen, the lineman who died on County Road 553 last year.

Annie Lippert can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 550. Her email address is alippert@miningjournal.net.