LEWISTON – About 150 area workers, labor activists, historians and government officials met Saturday morning to commemorate the sacrifices that shaped the U.S. labor movement and to pledge a renewed commitment to union efforts.

It was the fourth annual Workers Memorial Day Observance and May Day Breakfast sponsored by the Western Maine Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and for the first time this year, Museum L-A.

Maine’s two Democratic congressmen, Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen, were the featured speakers at the event.

Citing national statistics highlighting thousands of worker deaths in the United States from injury and job-related illness each year, Michaud said, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

He spoke about recent meetings he has had with officials of Colombia to discuss free trade deals between the U.S. and that South American nation.

He said paramilitary forces in Colombia “have actually beheaded” labor-movement activists.

He said he wants to send a clear message in Congress that the Bush administration and any future administration “will not deal with a country where they are actively murduring employees if they threaten to unionize.”

He went on to remind attendees, “It all starts in the workplace. We’re here today to talk about Workers Memorial Day, to remember those who have lost their lives and to do whatever we can from here on out to make the workplace safer.”

Michaud and Allen also reported on the progress of the Employees’ Free Choice Act, federal legislation that they sponsored.

“This legislation is extremely important,” Michaud said. “This allows individuals and employees to form a union, if they want to do that.”

Allen asked workers to support the federal act, which has passed the House and is now under review in the Senate.

Rachel Desgrosseilliers, executive director of Museum L-A, told the audience gathered just outside the museum’s rooms at the historic Bates Mill that oral rememberances being gathered from L-A workers are putting the heart back into the mill’s history.

She outlined plans for Museum L-A, which is preserving the Twin Cities’ labor history and industry through displays at the mill complex and by developing oral histories of people who worked in the textile mills, shoe shops and brick yards. She said there will be additional exhibits that will be available for student visits.

Desgrosseilliers emphasized that young people are amazed to learn about the mill’s child labor many decades ago, and about the long hours and low pay.

Labor historian and activist Peter Kellman spoke about the past, present and future of the U.S. labor movement.

Kellman, who is the author of “Divided We Fall,” a book about the 1987-88 paperworkers strike in Jay, said the one-on-one organizing efforts of union workers is more important than the larger gatherings of people.

In some accounts of the civil rights movement, Kellman said, “What didn’t make the newspapers was going around day after day talking to people. That’s how we build unions.”

Don Berry, president of the Western Maine Labor Council, called the event “more than a somber remembrance.”

“It’s also a chance to celebrate our proud labor history in Lewiston-Auburn and the surrounding communities,” Berry said.

The Western Maine Labor Council represents workers in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties.

Maine Senate President Beth Edmonds was joined by Portland author Phil Hoose and the musical ensemble “Nine To Nine” to perform songs that helped shape the U.S. labor movement.

The Workers Memorial Day breakfast also included a reading of the names of 38 Maine workers who died on the job last year.

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