Ghosts of Labor Past: Bring Injured Workers Back Aboard

The Haunting Tale of the USS Progressive

▶ Watch on YouTube

Ghosts of Labor Past

▶ Watch on YouTube

A worker does not stop belonging to the movement when an injury ends a career.

This Halloween, I am sharing two of my videos together: The Haunting Tale of the USS Progressive and Ghosts of Labor Past. One puts injured workers aboard a ship that talks about solidarity while people fall overboard. The other imagines a ghostly labor choir refusing to let forgotten workers disappear.

Watch The Haunting Tale of the USS Progressive: https://youtu.be/986bXBpz32A

Watch Ghosts of Labor Past: https://youtu.be/79xEmNeAmKw

These are political art. The ship is a metaphor; the labor legends in the choir are inspired characters, not recovered historical performances. The demand behind them is real: bring injured workers back into the fight.

For roughly ten years, I have asked people in my own political camp to take federal protections for injured workers seriously. I worked in health care and hard physical labor. I served as a union shop steward. I am speaking from my own experience of asking for solidarity and feeling shut out.

That is why this story feels like a haunting to me. The promises keep returning. So do the unanswered questions.

We celebrate workers when we need their labor. What happens when their bodies cannot keep doing it? Where is their place at the meeting, on the platform, in the campaign?

I support universal health care. I want Medicare for All advocates and Whole Washington supporters beside injured workers in a campaign that also addresses lost wages, permanent disability, fair medical evidence, timely benefits, and meaningful appeals.

A health care card cannot pay the rent.

WE NEED BOTH.

This argument must be honest about the public record. In October 2015, Patty Murray, Bobby Scott, Bernie Sanders and colleagues urged stronger oversight of state workers’ compensation systems. They warned about weakening protections and costs being shifted to families and public programs. That action matters. My question is what sustained campaign followed, and what enforceable national guarantee we will fight for now.

The 2025 Medicare for All bill, H.R. 3069, also addresses reimbursement for occupational medical care in section 801. I will not pretend it says nothing about workers’ compensation. My demand goes further: health coverage alongside a dependable floor for the economic and procedural protections injured workers need.

Injured health care workers belong in this discussion too. NPR’s 2015 investigation into nurses’ back injuries and disputes over employer responsibility remains worth reading. National Nurses United republished that reporting. I acknowledge that advocacy and ask for its reach to widen across occupations and state lines.

When a health care worker is injured or raises concerns about harm, people deserve careful listening, evidence, and accountable review. Personal accounts deserve examination. Specific findings about abuse or responsibility require the records of the particular case. Halloween imagery must never replace that work.

My political judgment is that a movement leaves a hole in its solidarity when it offers injured workers sympathy without taking up our concrete demands. I have experienced that gap as betrayal. I want an answer that workers can evaluate in public.

Here is what I am asking labor organizations, elected officials, and universal health care campaigns to support:

1. A new National Workers’ Compensation Commission with injured workers meaningfully represented. 2. Enforceable federal minimum standards that preserve stronger state protections. 3. Fair medical evaluations, timely decisions and benefits, meaningful appeals, and accountability for wrongful denials. 4. Public meetings with injured workers, including workers without union representation, followed by written commitments and a timetable.

If you already support these demands, show us the resolutions, legislation, organizing, and next steps. If you disagree, explain why. Let injured workers participate in deciding what comes next.

Watch the ship. Listen to the choir. Share both videos with someone who believes solidarity must survive the workplace injury.

Then ask your union, your elected representatives, and your health care campaign: will you help bring us back aboard?

Workers Won’t Be Silent. Darren Fonzseau

Sources: Murray–Scott–Sanders oversight announcement, October 21, 2015: https://www.murray.senate.gov/murray-scott-sanders-urge-stronger-oversight-of-state-workers-compensation-programs/

Medicare for All Act, H.R. 3069 (introduced 2025), section 801: https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr3069/BILLS-119hr3069ih.pdf

NPR investigation republished by National Nurses United: https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/hospital-nurses-your-injuries-are-not-our-problem

Editorial note: First-person political opinion prepared with AI assistance. The linked videos use artistic storytelling; historical-inspired characters should not be mistaken for authentic historical recordings.