Workers Memorial Day honors workers who died on the job

RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Hundreds of memorials took place around the world Thursday for National Workers Memorial Day.

The North Carolina State AFL-CIO held a memorial at Bicentennial Mall in downtown Raleigh to remember those who have died across the state or have been hurt while at work.

The NC State AFL-CIO says about 130 people died while working for a better life in 2014.

The organization is calling on the North Carolina Department of Labor to do more to prevent workplace fatalities and injuries.

"Those preventable deaths are far too many," Farm Labor Organizing Committee VP Justin Flores said. "Folks working in unsafe work conditions, facing heat stress, pesticides, tractor accidents."

"The fact is that North Carolina workers have never been safer," Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry said in a statement. "North Carolina's current injury and illness rate is at a record low 2.7 per 100 full-time workers, the lowest in the history of the state."

"More inspections, more education, more enforcement and more stringent penalties," NC State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer MaryBe McMillan said.

The North Carolina State AFL-CIO is an association made up of unions and union councils, representing workers.

For more information visit aflcionc.org and www.nclabor.com