Mishawaka dedicates Workers Memorial to remember fallen workers
MISHAWAKA — Kathy Andresen took a red rose Monday morning and placed it at the base of Mishawaka's new Workers Memorial near the city's Ball Band Memorial at Main Street and Mishawaka Avenue.
The rose was in memory of her husband, Jason Andresen, 45, who died in December 2020 in a workplace accident on a building site in Middlebury.
Andresen, the city of Mishawaka and the unions represented by the Northern Indiana Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO came together to dedicate the memorial as a way to call attention to workplace safety and the need for people to remember those who have been hurt or died in the workplace.
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Andresen said she is one of the people who have to live with the fact that her husband went to work one day and did not return, a scenario that affects 5,000 families annually who have loved ones killed on the job.
"Earning a living should not be a health hazard," Andresen said. "Every person this memorial represents had a life. Many left parents, spouses and children and beloved others behind, who still grieve for them, no matter the passage of time."
Mayor Dave Wood said this memorial honors the ones who have lost their lives, and city workers have been among those people. But he added that it's his commitment and the city's job to ensure that those in public service are given what they need to have a safe work environment for them and their families.
With the new workers site and the many monuments and statue in nearby Battell Park for veterans, Wood called the Mishawaka Avenue area "Monument Avenue," in recognition of the city's efforts to honor those people who serve others.
Joe Carbone, vice president of NIALF AFL-CIO and president of the local chapter, heralded this past year's Indiana General Assembly for passing work safety regulations for state highway workers as an example of sensible protections for industries and employees.
"Let's not go back to when it was legal to send children into coal mines, meat packing plants or other dangerous jobs," Carbone said. "Management in conjunction with their representatives of their workforce can develop safe work environments."
Wood credited City Clerk Deborah Ladyga-Block for coming to the city with the memorial idea.
Common Council President Gregg Hixenbaugh said he can remember his family walking from home to and from the Mishawaka factories, and this was replicated throughout the city and the world.
"Sophocles said, 'Without labor, nothing prospers,' and I think this really encapsulates what today is all about," Hixenbaugh said. "Mishawaka would not be the prosperous community that it is and the place we love without the labor, the sacrifice and the hard work that numerous residents have done over the course of time."
Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@sbtinfo.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Mishawaka Workers Memorial dedicated with words of widow of killed worker
