It ain’t every day the government sets aside a spell to holler up a prayer for the common man who got himself chewed up by the gears of industry, but come April 28–that’s precisely what the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration–known to friends and enemies alike as Nevada OSHA–and the Safety Consultation and Training Section (SCATS) will do. Both outfits, being snugly tucked inside the Division of Industrial Relations–which itself is within the Nevada Department of Business and Industry–will gather to honor those laboring souls who met their end whilst sweating to make a dollar, not only in the sagebrush reaches of Nevada but clear across the country.
They call it Workers Memorial Day–a title that sounds for all the world like it got dreamed up at a potluck dinner by some bright-eyed Bolshevik who had just finished reading Karl Marx and thought, “Why not?”
It happens each year because back in the bold year of 1970, Congress signed off on the Occupational Safety and Health Act, declaring with great fanfare that every laborer, from the pinstriped accountant to the fellow wrestling dynamite on a dam project, has the inalienable right to come home with all his fingers and toes still attached.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a mighty impressive name for a group of men counting heads and accidents, reports that in 2023, there were 5,283 fatal work injuries across the nation. That’s better than the 5,486 folks who fell in 2022–a 3.7 percent dip–if you’re one to favor arithmetic over sentiment.
The national fatal injury rate tipped down from 3.7 to 3.5 per 100,000 full-time workers. Nevada herself, with her silver hills and gambling palaces, recorded 57 fatal injuries, down three from the previous year.
Progress of a sort.
And lest you think this Memorial Day ends with speeches and paper hats, no, sir. There are grand schemes afoot to support the widows and orphans, too.
Kids’ Chance of Nevada grants scholarships to the children of workers who met an untimely end or got banged up. All told they’ve handed out more than 9,300 scholarships nationwide, with the grand sum topping $33.2 million–proof that sorrow can be something halfway useful.
Meanwhile, the Nevada Safety Consultation and Training Section offers no-cost services to employers who know you can’t mend a broken head with an apology. They’ll come to the work site, take a squint at your operations, and tell you straight if you’re inviting disaster.
As for Nevada OSHA, they remain ever-vigilant, ready to hear the complaints of any worker in harm’s way. The complaints get wrapped tight in confidentiality, safe from the reach of a wrathful boss, and both Nevada law and Uncle Sam himself forbid retaliation.
Thus, with speeches, scholarships, and solemn nods, Nevada prepares to tip its battered hat to the fallen–and if the whole business smells a little of socialism and reform, well, it ain’t the first time that mourners have mixed tears with politics.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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