(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – After the Niagara-Orleans AFL-CIO Central Labor Council held its annual Workers’ Memorial event back in 2025, its Executive Board met and made a decision that it had to go deeper than just address the yearly number of Workers who’d lost their lives - and instead focus on the pain their families were left to deal with if real change was to be made to improve on-the-job safety and holding companies to a higher accountability.

“We ‘had to put a face on these Workers because reciting the number of deaths each year just isn’t enough,’” Niagara-Orleans AFL-CIO President Jim Briggs told WNYLaborToday.com.

So, it was decided the Labor Council would commission a documentary to put that human face on the tragedies - and after an 11-month journey, the 47-minute-long Should Going To Work Be A Grave Decision? made its debut at the 35th annual Workers Memorial event that was held in May of this year at Niagara Falls’ Reservoir Park.

A relatively small group of attendees, including a number of Elected Officials, watched the film - which had the Niagara-Orleans Labor Council’s Documentary Team traveling to Waltham, Massachusetts, Baileyville, Maine and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to tell the story of Workers who lost their lives while at work - including a highway Worker killed in a hit-and-run vehicle crash, two at a chemical plant due to a toxic chemical leak, and another who died in a fireball explosion.

But now there’s an opportunity for as many as 200 area Labor Leaders and Union Members to see it for themselves at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 1st at Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York’s auditorium inside One Seneca Street in Downtown Buffalo.

The Niagara-Orleans Labor Council has joined with the Buffalo AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and the Western New York AFL-CIO Area Labor Federation (WNYALF) to host the fundraiser to help fray the costs of improvements to their Worker Memorials and further attempts at getting the message out that there must be concrete change in the future to ensure Workers - both Union and Non-Union, come back home from work the same way they left in the morning.

(WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Tickets for this fundraising event are $15 each and can be purchased here: A Night to Reflect: Screening of “Should Going to Work be a Grave Decision?”)

“This documentary ‘is different,’” Briggs (Pictured Below, Watching The Documentary At The Workers’ Memorial Event In Niagara Falls Earlier This Year/WNYLaborToday.com) tells WNYLaborToday.com, “because what you see what happened to the families of these Workers (in the film) who died on the job is ‘real.’ ‘It hits home because of the pain you see these families and their Co-Workers going through.’ When we initially showed the documentary I had a number of Elected Officials come up to me and ‘say how much they were impacted by it.’ They said ‘it made them want to change (the way the system works) - and now that we have their attention, we have to keep the pedal to the flow.’”

“This showing ‘will allow us to reach a broader’ group,” said Briggs (Pictured Below, Addressing Those In Attendance At The Workers’ Memorial Event In Niagara Falls/WNYLaborToday.com) of the documentary, which just might be the first such endeavor ever taken by a Western New York Labor Organization.

“‘This has gone on for too long in our country - with little resolve. We’re not doing enough about it (keeping Workers safe at work), but the only way to fix it is to enact health and safety legislation with teeth in it - real language.’ ‘We have to put pressure on our Elected Officials that will allow us to take a stand because going to work shouldn’t be a grave mistake,’” he said.

As the documentary examines each incident, the families and Union/United Steelworkers (USW) Representatives who are interviewed underscore the fact employers will not agree to the Union’s demands for increased on-the-job safety protections during contract negotiations.

“‘We just lost the most important person in our lives,’” a family member of the Worker killed in the hit-and-run incident said in the documentary.

“We’re constantly thinking about him,” said another.

“And we’re waiting for justice,” added another, noting the person responsible will go on trial sometime in 2026.

“‘We should be working together so both (the Union and management) has an equal voice when it comes to safety at the plant,’” said one USW Official.

“‘On paper,’ management ‘wants to be good on safety, but doesn’t want to hear about it.’ ‘It’s a struggle - every day,’” the Union Representative added.

Said another: “‘Workers lose their lives while at work - every year.’ ‘They’re not statistics - they’re Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, Sisters, Aunts and Uncles.’ ‘We need change and that will come by telling their stories.’”

Earlier this year the National AFL-CIO released its 35th annual Death on the Job-The Toll of Neglect report, which alarmingly finds workplace hazards kill 140,000 Workers each year in the United States - more than 380 Workers each day.

Those findings included: 5,070 Workers died from traumatic injury on the job in 2024, the latest year of data available, and an estimated 135,000 died from occupational diseases. An estimated 530 Workers died from heat alone; Black Workers still die on the job at a disproportionately higher rate than the national average; Latino Workers continue to face the greatest risk of dying on the job in 2024, at a rate 30% higher than the national average. Of the Latino Workers who died, 68.5% were Immigrants, a larger percentage than in previous years. The rate of young Worker deaths has nearly doubled since 2020 and Workers age 65 and older are nearly three times as likely to die on the job than other Workers; Workplace injuries create an enormous burden on the economy, costing an estimated $177 billion to $354 billion a year; and Under-reporting is widespread and the true toll of work-related injuries and illnesses is estimated to be between five million and 7.5 million each year in private industry.

The documentary does not feature any Worker deaths here in Western New York, and there have been several in recent years, but Briggs said there was a reason for that: “‘We wanted to show the scope that it just isn’t a Western New York issue.’ It’s a ‘national’ issue. ‘We wanted to do more and give the people who we talked to a chance to speak so people understood their pain because this is someone’s Father or Mother or Sister or Brother.’”

“‘It doesn’t matter if you’re Union or Non-Union, whether you’re a Man or a Woman, what your color is or what your religious beliefs are - because a human life is a human life,’” Briggs continued.

“That’s why we’ve invited a number of Elected Officials to this showing. ‘Change will only happen if our Elected Officials give (Labor) the power’ (to hold employers responsible for ensuring safety on-the-job and stricter penalties to those that don’t). ‘And if we don’t get those assurances from an employer, Workers must have the right to withhold their labor’ (until they do). ‘I’m also hopeful of filling Highmark’s auditorium with Labor people so (the Elected Officials) who ask that we remember them when they are running for office remember us when we go to work.’ ‘There are no trade-offs,’” he said.

WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: For More On This Labor News Story, Read: 35th Annual Niagara-Orleans Labor Council’s Workers’ Memorial Event Highlighted By Debut Of An ‘Emotional & Heart-Breaking Documentary That Focuses On The Direct Impact On-The-Job Deaths Of Loved Ones Have On Their Families’ - WNY Labor Today: Your On-Line Labor Newspaper, Bringing You Labor News From Across The Nation, New York State & Western New York