Usually when you hear Taps performed it is to commemorate the brave service men and women who have died while serving in the military. But on Monday night the song was played to remember those who lost thier lives serving their county in a different way. "A good friend of mine was killed on the job there in Sunstrandt and Harold Pointer was his name. I remember and think about him often and it could have been avoided." says Dean Johnson a retired worker. The American economy is one of the srongest in the world in no small part because of its hard workers. So the purpose of Monday's Memorial was not only to commemorate those who have fallen but to advocate "worker protection measures, safety training and mandatory safety equipment on the job." Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Doug Scott said in his speech. "Organized labor has been the catalyst for bringing this issue to light in so many different ways. So many ways that are obvoius to us like workers comp. things like better insurance benefits for workers." Ten thousand people in the U.S. died on the job last year and that's in a country with government regulations protecting workers. The number is much higher in some of the countries America imports from. So perhaps we should all be a little more thankful for the people who make the things we use. Illinois ranks slightly better than the national average in worker fatality with 3.3 percent fatality rate per one hundred thousand workers. If you wish to pay your respects to fallen workers you can visit the outdoor memorial at the E.J. Giorgi Building.