by Michael Kuchta

The Workers Memorial Day ceremony took place on Bohemian Flats. A bell rang out as David Ybarra, business manager for the Minneapolis Building and Construction Trades Council, read the names of the deceased brothers. Black cloth was draped over a cross bearing their name and union.

The Flats are just downriver from where the 35W bridge collapsed on Aug. 1, killing 13 people. Among the victims was 45-year-old Greg Jolstad, a member of Operating Engineers Local 49, who was on a road crew resurfacing the bridge when it crumbled.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation and its general contractor, Flatiron-Manson, stopped work briefly on the new bridge at 2 p.m. in commemoration of Workers Memorial Day.

Jolstad was one of five Building Trades members died on the job in 2007. The others:

• Joseph Harlow, age 34, Laborers Local 132, who drowned in a St. Paul storm sewer during a sudden rain last July.
• Thomas Lucio, age 31, IBEW Local 110, who died from burns suffered in a work accident in October.
• Robert J. Wilkens, age 29, Iron Workers Local 512, who died in a fall from a bridge in St. Louis Park in November.
• David Yasis, age 23, Laborers Local 132, who died in the same storm as Harlow.

Also remembered in Monday’s ceremony were five who died from lung illnesses contracted during their working lives:

• Ernest Frederick, age 76, Bricklayers Local 1.
• Thomas E. Gorton, age 57, Heat and Frost Insulators Local 34.
• Robert John, age 72, Sheet Metal Workers Local 10.
• Thomas R. Johnson, age 65, Pipefitters and Steamfitters Local 455.
• David V. Muehlstedt, age 65, Heat and Frost Insulators Local 34.

Michael Kuchta is communications coordinator for the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Reprinted from Workday Minnesota