Worker Memorial Day, April 28th, 2014
Blog
Nobody should be killed on their job in this day and age, nobody should be killed making a car. We remember these four workers who died on the job at Nissan Tennessee facilities. To remember those fallen is not enough; we need to support the auto workers’ fight to have a safer workplace that values the lives and well-being of the workers who put their bodies on the line every day to make Nissans. We demand Nissan publicly agree to stop bullying, threatening and punishing pro-union workers in their Tennessee & Mississippi plants while they engage in their constitutionally-protected right to organize.
Honor the fallen
1) Martin O’Connell, crushed between two trucks (1/25/12)
2) Name Unknown, killed at the Nissan Powertrain plant in Decherd, TN storage yard/loading dock, at Smyrna Nissan site (8/22/12)
3) Tan Van To, a worker from Waterford, MI, employed by Complete Automation, was killed by a falling electrical panel (4/25/13)
4) Michael Hooper, maintenance technician was killed in a robot cell (6/16/13)
Fight for the living
One worker notes the hypocrisy:
“When that guy got killed and the other guy got killed across the street, I sit in my living room…watching the news, and all you hear from Nissan management is we never compromise safety of our employees and that’s number one. I am just thinking and it just makes my skin crawl because of what I see every day. I know they don’t care about what happens to me, I know they don’t care. You poll anybody in there and over half of them will tell you they believe the same thing I do. Then here you are on TV saying that. I am thinking this is wrong to that guy’s family that you are saying that when we know what you are like inside that plant. Everybody knows who comes in there, and they don’t want you talking to anybody.”
Nissan workers say they’re afraid to report injuries or work hazards. They’ve said things like: “It seems like if you get hurt then you end up on their crap list and get yelled at all the time after,” and: “I knew nothing would be done about it. Going to medical is like being on trial for murder.”
