The annual Workers Memorial Day is remembering Iowa lives lost while on the job in 2015.
Thirty-nine Iowans were killed at work last year.
The list includes Andrea Farrington, who was murdered at Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville last summer.
There were also people who died in explosions, falls, trench collapses, and vehicle accidents.
Iowa’s Commissioner of Labor Michael Mauro says on average, 12 people are killed on the job every day in the U.S.
“We are never prepared to say goodbye to the people we love," he says. "But we are even less so when we send our loved ones off to work and they do not return home.”
He says Workers Memorial Day honors ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
It’s held each year on the anniversary of the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, Ken Sagar,says he would like to see the occasion end someday.
“I would truly love to stand here at some point in time and these chairs are empty because there are zero fatalities," he says. "Zero fatalities in the workplace.”