Howards Grove Mother Addresses US Labor Dept Workers Memorial Day in Washington

A Howards Grove mother paid homage in Washington on Thursday to her son who was lost in a workplace accident in 2019 while working on a farm.  Stacy Sebald, mother of 19-year-old Mitchell McDaniel, was a main speaker at the event held at the US Department of Labor headquarters.  The observance included addresses from Labor Department and OSHA officials as well as UMW International President Cecil Roberts and Liz Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO.

As a principal speaker, Sebald related the story of how her son, Mitchell, was picking up odd jobs wherever he could, and was hired to clean out a silo, a job which he was never trained to do, and was sent in alone.  Mitchell lost his life in the auger of that silo.

The annual Workers Memorial Day remembrance is observed yearly on April 28th, but was moved to the 25th this year due to the weekend.  It was attended by many other families of some of the more than 5,000 workers who lose their lives on the job each year.  The ceremony today concluded with a wreath-laying.