Remember the dead, fight for the living
ITF news 27 Apr 2026
Every year on 28 April, we stop, we remember, we
recommit.
This year, on International Workers’ Memorial Day, our
collective grief is fresh and the urgency for change is acute. In the past
twelve months, transport workers have been killed on runways, crushed by cargo,
run over at picket lines, caught in the crossfire of wars they did not start –
with many more suffering harms that still go uncounted: the stress, exhaustion,
isolation and fear that too many carry alone.
We represent 16.6 million transport workers across more than
150 countries. We honour every one of them.
https://www.itfglobal.org/en/news/international-workers-memorial-day-2026-remember-dead-fight-living?
War and its human cost
In 2025 alone, armed conflicts killed more than 240,000
people globally – in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of
Congo and beyond, all theatres of mass civilian death. In 2026, the Middle East
has become the epicentre of renewed devastation. Since the US/Israel-Iran war
began on 28 February 2026, over 3,600 people have been killed in Iran – more
than 1,700 of them civilians. In Lebanon, where Israeli strikes resumed in
March 2026, at least 2,450 people have been killed and over 1 million
displaced. In Venezuela, a US attack in January resulted in the deaths of
military personnel and civilians, with the blockade further driving hardship
for workers and their families.
Transport workers are on the front line of every conflict.
Since war erupted in Iran in February 2026, around 20,000
seafarers have been trapped aboard 2,000 vessels in the Persian Gulf. The
International Maritime Organisation reports that at least ten seafarers have
been killed in 21 confirmed attacks. Iranian authorities have also reported
that 39 commercial vessels have been sunk, 110 fishing boats destroyed and 20
seafarers killed. The ITF has received nearly 1,900 requests for assistance and
repatriated 450 seafarers from the region.
ITF General Secretary Stephen Cotton is unequivocal:
“Seafarers are not soldiers. They are workers largely from the Global South,
far from home, carrying the world's cargo on behalf of all our economies. They
did not start this war. They cannot end it. Yet they are being used as pawns.”
Aviation workers across the region have continued operating
under exceptional pressure as attacks target airports. Pilots, cabin crew, air
traffic controllers and ground crew are maintaining essential services amid
airspace closures and the constant threat of danger.
Earlier this month, the ITF Executive Board called for an immediate
end to hostilities, the full protection of civilian transport workers, and
concrete measures from employers and governments to protect them. The ITF also
joined global unions representing over 200 million workers worldwide in
demanding a permanent, sustainable ceasefire across the Middle East.
The deadly impact of regional conflicts on transport workers
is not confined to the Middle East. In West Africa, truck drivers have been
caught in the crossfire of the escalating Sahel security crisis. On 29 January
2026, armed groups ambushed fuel convoys along the Diboli–Kayes corridor in
western Mali, killing more than 15 tanker drivers – workers executed simply for
doing their jobs.
The ITF stands for peace everywhere workers are forced to
pay the price of decisions made by others.
OSH: The scale of the crisis
According to the most recent International Labour
Organization (ILO) global estimates, nearly 3 million workers die from
work-related causes every year – and the figure is rising, not falling.
Transport is one of the most dangerous sectors to work in. And it is not only
physical hazards that kill. Long working hours alone are estimated to cause
nearly 750,000 deaths a year worldwide and psychosocial risks are still poorly
captured, hidden behind a culture that tells workers to cope rather than
addressing the structural risks that harm them.
When workers warn and no one listens
On 18 January 2026, two high-speed trains collided near
Adamuz in southern Spain, killing 46 people and injuring 292, Spain's worst
rail disaster in more than a decade. Among the dead was the 28-year-old driver
of the Renfe train. Two days later, a trainee driver was killed when a commuter
train struck a
collapsed wall in Gelida, near Barcelona.
What makes Adamuz a defining Workers' Memorial Day story is
not just the scale of the tragedy. Rail workers had been raising the alarm
since August 2025, warning rail infrastructure operator ADIF of severe wear and
tear on the very tracks where the crash later occurred. An investigation later
confirmed a fractured track
joint that had been deteriorating for some time.
After the crash, rail unions called a national strike. ITF
and ETF affiliates CCOO and UGT joined other unions, demanding more maintenance
workers and greater investment in infrastructure. By the end of the first day,
unions secured an historic
agreement with the government: €1.8 billion in maintenance investment
over four years, 3,650 new jobs across the sector, and a joint safety committee
giving workers a real voice in safety decision making.
Tragically, 46 people died because warnings were ignored.
When safety fails, workers carry the consequences
On 12 June 2025, Air India Flight AI171 crashed shortly
after take-off from Ahmedabad, India, killing 241 of the 242 people on board –
among them both pilots and all ten cabin crew – the deadliest aviation disaster
this decade. The scale of the loss sent shockwaves across the global aviation
community.
On 22 March 2026, Captain Antoine Forest and First Officer
Mackenzie Gunther were killed when their Air Canada Express jet struck a fire
truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York. Both were members of ALPA
Canada, both were at the start of their careers.
Passengers said the pilots braked hard in their final
seconds, protecting everyone on board. “I wouldn't be here had it not been for
the pilot acting quickly,” one passenger told reporters.
ALPA Canada president Capt. Tim Perry, speaking as hundreds
of fellow pilots lined up in the rain to bring them home, said: “No family
should go through this. It must be a promise: when a pilot goes to work, they
must come home alive.”
The ITF stands with the families, unions, and aviation
workers reeling from these tragedies.
In ports and at sea, preventable deaths continue
Ports are hubs of the global economy. They are also among
its most dangerous workplaces.
The International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association
(ICHCA) tracks cargo-related workplace fatalities worldwide. Its June
2025 Severe Risks
Dashboard lists over 500 deaths in ports since 2000, revealing a
persistent, preventable pattern.
Every year, an estimated 100,000 fishers
lose their lives in what is often labelled the deadliest profession in the
world, carried out far from oversight, protection or accountability.
ITF
research published this month exposed serious labour abuses –
violence, wage theft, and forced labour – on fishing vessels operating in
Marine Stewardship Council-certified fisheries.
Fishers work in isolation, far from ports and legal
protection. Their deaths are not unavoidable tragedies. They are the result of
weak enforcement and a system that too often treats workers as disposable.
Psychosocial risk: the crisis still hidden at work
This year, the International Trade Union Confederation's
(ITUC) Workers' Memorial Day campaign focuses on the growing crisis of
psychosocial hazards at work. Work-related stress, excessive workloads, long
hours, job insecurity, bullying, harassment, and workplace violence are killing
workers – just as better understood physical hazards can.
For too many transport workers, this is their daily, lived
reality. Seafarers spend months at sea, cut off from families. Urban transport
workers face an intensification of third-party violence, including gender-based
violence, and schedules that do not bend to workers’ needs. Truck and coach
drivers face significant safety and health risks due to the informality and
precarity of the sector. Understaffing, competitive pressures and the looming
threat of automation are driving high turnover and fatigue among aviation
workers. Women and young workers are particularly exposed, often finding
themselves in precarious roles with the least access to support.
Mental health is not an individual failing, it is the
systemic outcome of how work is organised, how workers are valued and
supported, and whether they have the power to shape their own conditions.
The ITF's research report – Essential
public services, essential workers' health – documented union-led
mental health initiatives for young workers in urban transport across seven
countries, proving that protecting mental health is fundamental union work.
The ITUC's call to action is one the ITF shares: recognise
and enforce psychosocial hazards in law, conduct proper risk assessments,
prevent bullying and harassment, and regulate excessive hours.
Violence against transport workers
ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment in the World
of Work sets the global standard, yet ratification remains too slow and
implementation too uneven. For transport workers, who face some of the highest
rates of third-party violence of any sector, C190 must be ratified, resourced,
and enforced.
The human cost of that violence is not abstract. On 5
January 2026, Alessandro Ambrosio, a 34-year-old Trenitalia conductor, was
stabbed to death in the employee car park at Bologna station after his shift.
Less than a month later, Serkan C., a 36-year-old Deutsche Bahn conductor and
father of two, was beaten to death on a train in Germany after asking a
passenger for a valid ticket. Both were simply doing their jobs. Both paid with
their lives.
Remember the dead, fight for the living
Captain Antoine Forest and First Officer Mackenzie Gunther,
killed at LaGuardia. The 28-year-old train driver killed at Adamuz, and the
trainee driver killed days later in Gelida. Alessandro Ambrosio, stabbed to
death at Bologna station. Serkan C., beaten to death on a train in Germany. The
Korean trade union member killed on a picket line. The seafarers killed in the
Strait of Hormuz. The ground workers killed at airports. The dockworkers
crushed by cargo. The fishers lost at sea. The air traffic controllers who
burned out in silence. The bus drivers injured and traumatised by violence on
the route. And the thousands of transport workers killed in war and conflict.
We will not forget them. And we will not stop fighting until
every transport worker comes home safe.
