Coffin paraded through streets to remember N.J. workers killed on the job

The New Brunswick rally included heartfelt testimonials from families of New Jersey workers killed while doing their jobs.

NEW BRUNSWICK -- It was an ordinary Friday when James Hoyt left his Bergen County home and set off for another day of work.

Hoyt, a temp worker for the Labor Ready employment agency, was assigned what seemed like a mundane job of loading racks of old computers into a truck. But, he never made it home.

Hoyt was crushed when a 2,500-lb. rack of computers tipped while workers attempted to move the load from one truck to another across the lift gates on the back of the vehicles, his family said. He was one of more than 4,000 workers killed on the job across the nation in 2012.

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"We've come to believe that accidents like Jamie's are less an accident than a pattern," said his brother, Mike Hoyt. "If somebody had a real stake in these workers' safety, the transfer between trucks certainly would not have been made up in the air, from one lift-gate to another."

Hoyt was among the New Jersey workers remembered Sunday at a Workers' Memorial Day rally and march through the streets of New Brunswick.

Hundreds of people, including the families of workers killed on the job, paraded through New Brunswick pushing an empty coffin to symbolize fallen workers.

Others carried orange signs with the names of 36 New Jersey workers killed last year at work.

"Not one more death! Not one more death!" the group chanted in English and Spanish before starting the march.

The event was organized by local labor, environmental and community organizations, including New Labor, a statewide workers' rights organization. New Brunswick police helped clear streets for the march.

Workers' Memorial Day is marked annually by labor groups and unions across the nation. It is usually held around April 28, the anniversary of the 1971 founding of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, the federal agency that oversees worker safety.

This year's New Jersey event came a few days after a truck driver was killed while working at Global Container Terminal in Bayonne. Hon L. Lok, 53, of Brooklyn, was killed Thursday when he was hit while standing outside his truck, Port Authority officials said.

Speakers at the rally spoke about Lok's death and the circumstances surrounding the deaths and injuries of other workers. Many of those killed worked in low-paying jobs.

"That's what it's all about. It's about retelling these stories," said Lou Kimmel, executive director of New Labor, the worker's rights group in New Brunswick.

Officials from the OSHA office in Woodbridge also attended the event. They said about 38 workers died a day in the U.S. before OSHA was founded in 1971.

In 2014, 4,679 U.S. workers were killed on the job - or about 13 a day, according to OSHA statistics.

"That number, though, is still too many," said Patricia Jones, director of OSHA's Avenel office in Woodbridge.

Many at the rally also called for raising New Jersey's minimum wage from $8.38 an hour to $15 an hour, in hopes that a higher wage would lead to more respect for workers' health and safety.

For the Hoyt family, the day was about remembering their brother's life as well as his death.

Hoyt's brother, Mike, and his sisters, Anne Hoyt Scavone and Mary Jo Hoyt, attended the rally with other relatives.

"He was smart, independent, mischievous," Mike Hoyt said of his late brother. "He had a ferocious work ethic."

Before his death, Hoyt had turned his life around, his relatives said. After a stint in prison after a drunk driving arrest, the former plant manager had quit drinking and gone back to school to change careers.

He commemorated a decade of sobriety with Alcoholics Anonymous and completed his training to become a licensed practical nurse, his family said. At 59, the Bogota resident was looking for a nursing job when he took the job as a temp worker to pay the bills.

Hoyt, a passionate lover of politics, died before he could see this year's presidential campaign, his family said. The fierce Kansas City Royals fan also missed seeing his beloved team win  the World Series last year.

"Or maybe, from somewhere, he did," Mike Hoyt said at the rally. "Rest in peace, Jamie."