News Archives
March 18, 2008
Worker Fatality at U.S. Pipe and Foundry
Labor and community organizations are busy at this time of the year planning events and ceremonies around Workers Memorial Day which will be observed on April 28, 2008. The primary purpose of marking a day to remember those who lost their lives at work is to ensure that their sacrifice is remarked upon and remembered, but mostly because such a sacrifice is too large a price to pay to sustain one’s family and livelihood.
We started this year on a tragic note with the deaths of two laundry workers at North East Linen in Linden. We argued and discussed the reason for the incident and what would be the best prevention strategy to ensure that more workers don’t lose their lives on the job. Numerous activists, union members, safety and health professionals and lawmakers, pledged to take action in preventing workplace fatalities at a congressional subcommittee hearing in Linden in January.
However, as we have continued to fight hard, our communities and our state continue to be plagued by more tragedies. March 5, 2008 was marked for New Jersey working families with yet another tragic workplace incident – this time at U.S. Pipe and Foundry in Burlington where our union brother Norman Castick, 52 was killed when a 3,000 pound pipe rolled off a forklift and crushed him. Brother Castick had worked for U.S. Pipe for more than 33 years and retained his job due to seniority while 180 others were laid off when the company terminated its manufacturing operations in February. Mr. Castick was single-handedly managing a job previously coordinated by three employees to ensure proper transfer of pipes.
Here again, as with the fatalities in Linden, the working conditions that led to a senseless loss of life resulted from a company’s negligence and its refusal to recognize safety issues as the cornerstone of a successful and productive business operation. Time in and time out, studies show that workers and companies best benefit in an environment where decisions about work load, appropriate training and safety and health are made jointly by employees and management.
As we will commemorate this ultimate sacrifice made by Brother Castick and other working men and women who have lost their lives, let us each, individually, pledge to ourselves never to forget the reason for our fight for New Jersey’s working families and to continue to empower, educate and inform workers everywhere.