In early December I lost another friend to workplace hazards. He was a good friend. We had only been friends for a few years but it seemed as though we had always been. He made friends easily to be sure and had many. Some who had come to know him much more recently than myself had become much closer than I had. But he showed no partiality towards anyone that I ever witnessed. If you were a friend of his you knew that you could ask for his help. If you were a friend you knew you could count on him to do whatever he said he would. If you were not a friend of his you too could count on him to do what he said although you would likely wish he wouldn’t. His passing was more than just a personal loss of a friend. He had a wife and two young children.
He was also a union officer of his local and was very active in the labor movement. His passing will leave a large void in the labor movement whether you mean organized labor or labor in general. He was quite young and had lots of ambition and desire to help those needing help. He had already done more than most realize. He got involved, which is more than most are willing to do. He cared, which as of late seems to be more than many are capable of doing. He cared about people. All people.
He was well liked and respected by most of his coworkers and those with whom he interacted. And he liked his job. Both the work he was doing for his union and his job for his employer. He took the time and spent his energy to do it well. Good enough was never good enough. He was stubborn and that wasn’t a bad thing. If he was sure that he was doing the right thing there was nothing you could do to dissuade him. If it was not the right thing you had no chance to get him to do it. If he was uncertain he’d ask those he felt he could trust to tell him the truth.
He worked hard to make things better for his coworkers. He also worked hard to make things better for those that he served. Often times he found himself at odds with his employer. He had far too often in the last couple years to be at odds with the other officers in his union. Some disliked him because he was able to get media coverage on an issue and they were jealous that it was not them. Some disliked him because he found them doing wrong and he called them out on it. Some disliked him because they could not bully him and bend him to their will to serve their desires. Some disliked him because he knew powerful people and had their ear. Some disliked him because they were powerful people and felt that he was upstaging them. Many of the people who disliked him fit into several of these categories. But most people who met him liked him.
Anytime a worker loses their life to workplace hazards it is a tragedy. When it is due gross negligence, ignorance or willful persecution it makes it just that much worse. My friend had some personal problems. We all do. However, when someone becomes a target for workplace harassment, which is becoming all to common and frequent, by those whose duty it is to protect it goes beyond wrong or illegal it becomes a sin and inhuman. One of the saddest parts of this incident is that he had been working with WisCOSH to provide information and training for his unions members.
His union’s membership had over the last few years found itself with a target on each and every one of their backs. They were targeted for elimination by elected government officials who cared only for making a name, of whatever caliber or stripe, for themselves. They found themselves increasingly under actual physical attack by their clientèle while on the job. In plain view and broad daylight. They found their employer making public statements to the press that there had only been X number of attacks so far this year and that last year there had been Y number of assaults and that the situation was not getting worse but was in fact nearly the same as it had been in the past. As if even one assault was acceptable much less X or Y amount.
WisCOSH, along with my friend [union representative and company employee] asked for and received the companies OSHA 300 Logs although the company tried first to claim it did not know what an OSHA 300 Log was. It then tried to claim that it did not, and in fact would not, have to release them. After providing them with proof that in fact they did need to they did provide copies. Piecemeal and at their own pace over the course of a couple weeks. [A Letter of Interpretation from OSHA explicitly states that an employer must provide a copy of the OSHA 300 Log Form to the requester, his/her personal representative and their authorized employee representative by the end of the next business day.] The numbers cited by the company were wrong. And not by a little bit. They had been vastly redacted and parsed. They also appeared to have been altered but to what extent we could not tell.
In order to ascertain to what extent WisCOSH then approached another union officer which was the person in charge of handling the Workers Compensation cases for their members so that we could try to get better and more accurate numbers. That officer refused to work with WisCOSH to help his union members. From what WisCOSH was able to see there were also many irregularities with the W.C. cases as well.
While it is usual to expect a company to try to obfuscate the number and frequency of worker illness, injury or death it is not acceptable. What is not usual nor acceptable is for a union officer to not just turn a blind eye to injustice in the workplace but to be a willing participant in it. Neither is it usual nor acceptable for that union officer to engage in workplace bullying against a fellow union officer attempting to carry out their duty as an officer. In plain language it is reprehensible for those officers to blame their fellow union member and elected officer for his demise.
WisCOSH will not forget you nor your struggle for justice in the workplace Brandon. We pray you can rest in peace.