More Injuries, Fewer Deaths on the Job

by James Parks, Apr 25, 2007

Although the number of workplace deaths is declining, too many workers remain at risk and face death, injury or disease as a result of their jobs. Progress in protecting workers’ safety and health is slowing. For some groups of workers, jobs are becoming more dangerous, according to the AFL-CIO 2007 report, Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect.

The 16th edition of the national and state-by-state profile of worker safety and health in the United States reveals that in 2005 (the last year U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are available) 5,734 workers died from workplace injuries, compared with 5,764 the previous year. But the figures show a significant increases in fatalities among Latino and foreign-born workers.

The report was released in conjunction with Workers Memorial Day, April 28, a day set aside every year to honor workers killed and hurt on the job and highlight the need for improved job safety standards. In the United States, health and safety advocates will focus on the Bush administration’s troubling workplace safety record. (Check out Bush’s record on the BushWatch site.)

In fact, the Bush safety and health agenda is about helping Big Business, says Chris on America Blog.

Forget about workplace safety and think more about business profits. It’s a familiar story with Bush and the GOP Congress who choose business over individuals at every possible opportunity.

Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.

On average, according to Death on the Job, 16 workers were fatally injured and more than 12,000 workers were injured or made ill each day of 2005. These statistics do not include deaths from occupational diseases, which claim the lives of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 workers each year. Along with the decreased number of workplace deaths in 2004, the rate of on-the-job fatalities (4.0 per 100,000 workers) was down 2 percent from 2004.

Wyoming led the country with the highest fatality rate (16.8 per 100,000), followed by Montana, Mississippi, Alaska, South Dakota and South Carolina. The lowest state fatality rate (1.1 per 100,000) was reported in Rhode Island, followed by Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Michigan.

Although there was an overall decrease in deaths, Death on the Job reports significant increases in the number of Latino and foreign-born workers killed. For Latino workers, worksite deaths increased by 73 percent from 1992 to 2004—at the time when overall workplace deaths were declining. From 2004 to 2005, the number of Latino workers killed on the job jumped from 883 to 923. The risk of death is particularly high for Latino men in the mining and construction industries. In 2000, Latino construction workers made up less than 16 percent of the construction workforce, but they suffered 23.5 percent of the fatalities.

Meanwhile, fatalities among foreign-born workers followed a similar disturbing trend, increasing from 635 in 1992 to 1,035 in 2005.

Death on the Job takes on the White House’ s dismal record in protecting workers’ safety, noting:

As the economy, the workforce and hazards are changing, we are falling further and further behind in our efforts to protect workers from new and existing problems. Very simply, workers need more job safety and health protection. The Bush administration’s lack of regulation and increased attention to employer assistance and voluntary compliance comes at the expense of worker safety and health.

The Bush administration’s refusal to pursue and enact new job safety standards and its inadequate funding for the nation’s two major safety agencies—OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA)—play a major role in the continuing problem of deadly and dangerous jobs, according to the AFL-CIO report.

In a post on The Hill’s Congress Blog, AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Peg Seminario says:

Under the Bush Administration, voluntary efforts and partnerships with employers have been favored over mandatory standards and industry-wide enforcement initiatives. With this approach, OSHA has abandoned its leadership role in safety and health, choosing to work with individual employers, rather than taking bold action to bring about broad and meaningful change in working conditions on an industry-wide and national level.

President Bush’s proposed 2008 budget for worker safety and health programs reflects the administration’s policies toward worker protection—it includes priorities and policies that favor employers over workers and voluntary compliance over enforcement. For 2008, the Bush administration has proposed $490 million for OSHA, and $313 million for MSHA. Adjusting for inflation, the proposed OSHA budget represents a $5 million cut compared with the 2006 appropriation. Since 2001, when the Bush administration took office, the OSHA budget has been cut by $25 million in real dollars.

The report also notes the political landscape for worker safety and health is changing. With the election of a Democratic majority in Congress, key committees with responsibility for safety and health are chaired by longtime strong supporters of worker safety and health protections.

Already, these committees have held hearings on the state of mine safety and the Bush administration’s implementation of the new mine safety laws. In addition to mine safety, congressional leaders have vowed to increase oversight on other important safety and health issues and the administration’s policies and programs.

In addition to stronger oversight, Death on the Job recommends:

• Strengthening the OSH Act to make it easier to issue safety and health standards and to make the penalties for violating the law tougher.
• Giving workers a real voice in the workplace on safety and health issues as part of a comprehensive safety program to identify and correct hazards.
• Extending OSHA protections to the millions of workers who now fall outside the agency’s protection.
• Implementing immediately the provisions of new mine safety legislation to protect miners in the event of an emergency and to increase penalties for serious and repeated violations.
• Passing a new OSHA standard to protect workers from ergonomic hazards and crippling repetitive strain injuries and back injuries, which continue to represent the most significant job safety problem in the nation.

As the report says:

Only with these real reforms and improvements in law will the promise of a safe job for all of America’s workers finally be fulfilled.

The report also breaks down the death and injury rates by industry, state and race; tracks trends in enforcement activities, regulations and funding; and examines other job safety statistics. Visit the AFL-CIO’s Workers Memorial Day site to download a copy of Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect and other important material on job safety and Workers Memorial Day. 

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