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The thin line marks today, 29 September 2026.

Work

International Workers' Memorial Day

Workers' Memorial Day is held on 28 April in more than a hundred countries. Unions, families and safety bodies remember the people killed, injured or made ill by their work, read the names of the year's dead, and demand the protections that would have saved them. Its slogan, remember the dead and fight like hell for the living, sets the tone: grief and campaigning on the same day.

2027

28 April 2027

Expected

Expected date from the organiser’s standing rule. Confirm with the organiser nearer the time.

Organiser: International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Hazards magazine

Read the organiser’s pageAdd to your calendarJSON

When it falls

28 April, every year.

Also known as: IWMD, Workers Memorial Day, Day of Mourning, International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers.

Where it came from

Canadian unions began marking 28 April as a Day of Mourning for workers killed and injured at work in the early 1980s, and the Parliament of Canada passed the Workers Mourning Day Act in 1991. The trade union movement took the date international in 1996 as the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers, and the ILO adopted the same day for its own campaign in 2003. National variants keep their own names: it is the Day of Mourning in Canada, where the flag flies at half-mast on Parliament Hill, and Workers Memorial Day in the United States, where the AFL-CIO leads union commemorations and OSHA holds its own memorial ceremonies.

First observed in 1996.

The organiser’s account of the day

How organisations mark it

  • Hold a memorial service or vigil and read the names of workers killed locally in the past year.
  • Lower flags to half-mast and observe a minute's silence at work, traditionally at 11am.
  • Publish the year's workplace fatality and injury figures for your sector alongside what is being done about them.
  • Run a union safety representatives' briefing on the year's campaign theme and the hazards behind it.
  • Lay wreaths at a workers' memorial and invite bereaved families to speak.

Why this exists

Workplace & farm

nearly three millionwork-related deaths a year

Work-related deaths worldwide — worldwide, 2023. Source: International Labour Organization, Nearly 3 million people die of work-related accidents and diseases (news release) (2023).

“Nearly three million workers die every year due to work-related accidents and diseases”

More figures for this hazard

ObservanceNextKindWhereHazards
World Day for Safety and Health at Work28 April 2027 ExpectedDayWorldwideWork
National Safety Month1–30 June 2027 ExpectedMonthUnited StatesWorkRoadFalls

Sources

  1. 28 April — International Workers' Memorial Day — 28april.org, read 15 September 2026.
  2. #iwmd26 | Fighting psychosocial hazards at work — 28april.org, read 15 September 2026.
  3. #iwmd25 | 28 April — 28april.org, read 15 September 2026.
  4. About — 28 April (Hazards magazine and the ITUC) — 28april.org, read 15 September 2026.
  5. Day of Mourning — Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety — www.ccohs.ca, read 15 September 2026.
  6. Workers Memorial Day — OSHA — www.osha.gov, read 15 September 2026.
  7. History of 28 April — ILO — www.ilo.org, read 15 September 2026.

Page last confirmed against the organiser on 15 September 2026.