Mass honors Long Island laborers

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Bay Shore was filled with an unusual sight last night: scores of workers in hard hats, receiving a blessing from parish Msgr. Thomas Coogan, who sprinkled holy water on them as he walked the aisles.

It was part of the first Workers Memorial Day Mass on Long Island, honoring laborers who have died on the job in Nassau and Suffolk counties in the last year and calling for better safety measures.

"When you work in the trades there's always going to be an element of danger," said Kris LaGrange, one of the organizers of the event, which drew about 125 people. "People are still dying."

A similar Mass is held every year at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan to mark the creation of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 40 years ago. That event, planned for Thursday, attracts massive crowds of workers. Last night Long Island, on the eve of OSHA's 40th anniversary, honored the 10 workers killed here on the job since early 2010.

One of them was Yolanda Gonzalez, 39, a Lake Ronkonkoma resident who was crushed to death in June when two pallets of vodka pasta sauce weighing about a ton fell on her in an East Farmingdale packing company. L&S Packing was eventually fined late last year $5,000 by OSHA for two safety violations.

One worker at the Mass, Scott Tyrrel, 56, of Brentwood, said he feels a sense of danger every time he goes to work as an auto mechanic and puts a vehicle up on the lift. "You have a 10,000 pound truck over your head, you want to make sure it stays up there," he said.

He added that the lifts rarely received official safety inspections, and that workers themselves have had to fix problems with them.

Another worker, Ron Bauer, 47, of Hicksville, a longtime overhead lineman for National Grid, said he felt honored that the Mass was held to salute and dignify workers.

"I think it's great. I love it. I think it brings unity," Bauer said.

LaGrange said various worker unions that sponsored the event chose St. Patrick's partly because it is in the Town of Islip, which has one of the highest densities of union members on Long Island. He said the event was also important because of recent attacks on the collective bargaining rights of workers across the country.