Our readers our aware of the short life and sad death of Justus Booze because Elizabeth Floyd Mair has reported on the story since the day he died. A year ago, on May 4, Booze took a day job in Guilderland, for $60, with Countryside Tree Care and was killed in a woodchipper. He was just 23.

Booze was to have been married in two weeks. His fiancée and the two children who called him “Dad” miss him every day. Booze was among 22 workers killed on the job over the last year in the greater Capital Region who were remembered in a ceremony this spring. Maureen Cox read each of the 22 names out loud as a red rose was placed in the dead worker’s honor.

Most of them were names we did not know: James G. Deragon was 47 when he was crushed to death by a 26-ton cooling fan. Robert Fahr was 55 when he drowned while cleaning a swimming pool. And the list goes on.

Cox, the chairwoman of the North East New York Council for Occupational Safety and Health, told us one of the reasons the ceremony is held is to make people aware of the number of workers killed on the job. We’re aware of Justus Booze because he died in our town, but such preventable deaths are also happening in towns across our state.

Remembering lost lives with red roses and raising consciousness about unnecessary deaths is a good start to honor the dead and galvanize the public. But we need to funnel that sadness and anger into action.

Laws are in place to protect workers. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated Booze’s death after which the owner of Countryside Tree Care in Guilderland, Tony Watson, was charged with violations ranging from “serious” to “willful.” Watson was fined $141,000 but hasn’t been able to agree with OSHA on a penalty and the case is now set for a hearing in October before an administrative law judge.

In the year since the last rose-laying ceremony, OSHA has investigated 14 fatalities. “That’s 14 too many,” said Charles Harvey, an OSHA compliance officer at the ceremony. We agree.

He said most of the complaints are related to falls — not wearing safety harnesses on roofs, for example. A safety suit costs about $825, he said, while the cheapest OSHA fine is about $3,000. Harvey did the math and concluded an employer could safely outfit three people for the cost of the cheapest fine.

Too many employers look at the fines as just a cost of doing business and ignore the safety of their workers.

“We must demand that employers meet their responsibilities to protect workers and hold them accountable if they put workers in danger,” said Cox at the ceremony. Unfortunately for all of us, our country is moving in the opposite direction.

Cox told us after a recent Enterprise podcast, “In these times of anti-regulation and anti-government, OSHA has been cut by 21 percent — $116 million.” Those federal funds are sorely needed to see that employers do what is needed to keep their workers safe.

Cox summarized President Donald Trump’s view this way: “The employer will do the right thing. They’re good businessmen. Let them run their businesses without regulation.”

Cox looks back at history and remembers when businesses did not to the right thing, citing General Electric’s pollution of the Hudson River, or further back, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 that killed 146 workers.

The factory on the eighth, ninth, and 10th floors of the Asch building in New York City couldn’t be reached by firemen’s ladders. Most of the victims were young immigrant women, working 52 hours a week, sewing blouses, for $7 to $12 in pay. The victims couldn’t get out on fire escapes — there was only one — and they couldn’t take the stairs on some of the floors because the owners had locked the doors to prevent workers from stealing or taking breaks. There were no sprinklers to quell the flames. Most of the young women jumped to their deaths.

“That was the genesis of the labor movement,” said Cox. “We’re sliding back to that view, of letting business alone. History has shown us they won’t do the right thing. Their motivation is speed and profit.”

Justus Booze’s employer did not offer him or fellow workers the training they needed to be safe, OSHA found; he also cut other corners to save — at the expense of his workers.

Cox asserts that, if the proper training is given to workers, and they are given the equipment that makes their jobs safe, “It can speed the process. You have a happier workplace. You keep a trained workforce.”

While we salute enlightened employers who do right by their workers, we, as a society, can’t count on all business owners to do so. We need the vigilance of a government agency like OSHA to be well-funded, to make the needed inspections before tragedy occurs. We urge the cut funds be restored.

Beyond that, we support the New York Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s advocacy for  criminal prosecution in egregious cases.

Right now, this is happening on a case-by-case basis, with each district attorney making an independent decision. Cox said her office has been conversing with the Albany County District Attorney’s Office about Booze’s death and the possibility of bringing criminal charges against Watson.

Two recent cases have been brought in New York City. In one, Harco Construction was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for the death of a young worker crushed in an excavation pit. In the other, Salvatore Schirripa and the construction company he owned were indicted for failure to comply with safety regulations, resulting in the death of Vidal Sanchez-Roman, 50, who had been smoothing concrete on a scaffold six stories up without a harness.

We’d like to see legislation passed that would allow criminal prosecution across the state for such egregious cases, not leaving it up to each district attorney to make an independent, sometimes political decision.

America has been built by the strength of its workers. We cannot afford to regard our workforce as expendable commodities, part of an equation driven solely by profit. Criminal prosecution could make employers take safety seriously. Justus Booze deserves as much.