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‘16 Deaths Per Day’ Highlights Weak Penalties for Worker Fatalities |
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Every day, 16 workers go to work and don’t come home. They are killed on the job. But far too often, employers that have created or ignored dangerous workplace conditions are not held accountable. Civil penalties are weak and criminal prosecutions rare.
Now, “16 Deaths Per Day,” a new video from Brave New Films, shines a spotlight on the weak deterrence and penalties of the nation’s workplace safety laws.
Along with the video, Brave New Films has created a website and Facebook page to build support for the Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2067), which would toughen enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and penalties for violating the law.
In a post on Firedoglake, David Dayen of Brave New Films writes:
The video takes a look at the stories of several workers. Travis Koehler-Fergen, an employee at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, and Tina Hall, from Toyo Automotive Parts USA, both died at their workplaces in accidents. The Orleans was found by OSHA [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration] to have broken the law, but was never referred for prosecution. Sixteen safety violations were found at the Toyo plant prior to the accident that killed Tina Hall, but the highest fine ever levied on the company was $7,000.
The maximum penalty for a serious violation that injures or even kills a worker is $7,000, and $70,000 for willful and repeated violations. But those are rarely assessed. The average penalty for a serious OSHA violation is less than $1,000, and the average penalty when a worker is killed is $11,300, Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO director of health and safety, told a House hearing this spring.
Current OSHA enforcement and penalties are far too weak to provide any meaningful incentive for employers to address job hazards or to deter violations. As a result, workers are exposed to serious hazards that put them in danger and cause injury and death.
In “16 Deaths Per Day,” David Uhlman, director of the University of Michigan’s Environmental Law and Policy Program, notes that the maximum criminal penalty an employer faces for a willful violation of safety laws causing a worker’s death is just six months in jail.
Now, if that same employer who commits that violation goes out over the weekend and shoots a deer without a state permit and transports that deer across state lines, it’s a five-year felony….The problem with our worker safety laws is not the rule; the problem is there are no consequences for breaking the rule.
Along with strengthening the penalties for OSHA violations for the first time in nearly 20 years, the Protecting America’s Workers Act would bring more workers under the protection of OSHA, protect workers who blow the whistle on employers that break the law and strengthen workers’ safety rights.
You can view “16 Deaths Per Day” here and sign a petition demanding that Congress act swiftly to pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act.
5 Comments
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now that we have a labor firendly administration,this needs to change.
ms mitch mcconnell,elaine chao ignored too much during the last eight years,when working people had their rights trampled.
this can’t continue
If you want the laws upheld then tell use what judges to voute for in the next local elections. It does no good to add stricter laws if the judges are pro business. The same goes with union forming laws reguarding abuses by employers that I have heard over and over again. If we have pro union judges on the bench, the laws already in place would be good enough to give the unoin organizers a fair chance of forming one in the place that they work. We need more info on those judges up for the bench on election day, or again otherwise we can have all the new laws that congress can print and still see the same results.
As a member of Boilermakers Local 40, I am fortunate to work at the Paradise and Shawnee TVA plants. They have recently instituted their Trilateral Safety Alliance, which is the first time I’ve ever seen safety take precedence over productivity on a job site. Usually all the good safety talk goes out the window when the crunch to finish the job is on. My hat is off to TVA, the contractors (G*UB*MK and NPS), and my union brothers and sisters for making a dangerous job as safe as it can be. My heart goes out to the families of the 16 workers a day that die needlessly due to company greed and poor (and nonexistant) safety programs. God Bless the Unions!
The best way to not have an accident is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Which means a serious and substantial commitment on the part of business. And the only way that is going happen is when they are held accountable for their actions or lack there of. And for lot of business that commitment isn’t going to come about until they are made to pay substantial penalties.
Hello All,
I just received this e-mail and would like to encourage everyone to take a moment to follow up and get a copy of the report. This is an important action in the fight for dignity and respect within the area of Safety for Injured Workers and the “Hostile Workplace Environment” they face when they follow their lawful obligation to report workplace injuries.
I look forward seeing this report, and I already know from my 11 year experience that the trail of this system failure is embedded within the facts. Not until the trail of workplace injury “Claim Denial and System Failure” is given a full and complete review, by competent and qualified investigators, will the truth and facts ever be exposed about all the tactics, conduct and deception used to extort benefits from the injured and conceal the full extent of the true cost and liability of workplace injury in the American Workplace today.
Please take this opportunity to participate and communicate your concerns to others about this conduct and help to bring these institutionalized “Dark Practices” by Employers and Insurers, used against our Working Families, to the surface. Until we help to expose and bring all of these acts and practices to the public floor, these acts and conduct, all which have created this “Hostile Workplace Environment,” will continue to operate undeterred. If your fortunate enough to be healthy and have never faced this incredible and abusive evil within the workplace, keep this one thought in mind, YOU could be next! It can happen in the blink of an eye.
Only YOU can save the plight of the next Injured Worker and help them avoid the failed pathway we all have seen provided.
Thank you in advance for your interest and support.
Your Comments and Feedback are Welcome!!
Craig Michie
Nevada Voters Injured At Work
NvVIAW@aol.com
Subject: AFL-CIO President Trumka on GAO Report on the Accuracy of Workplace Injury and Illness Data
For Immediate Release Contact: Amaya Tune: 202-637-5018
Statement by AFL-CIO President Trumka on GAO Report
on the Accuracy of Workplace Injury and Illness Data
November 16, 2009
The GAO report released today confirms that employer policies and practices that discourage the reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses are widespread and undermining the safety and health of America’s workers.
The results of a GAO survey of more than 1,000 occupational health practitioners are alarming – more than two thirds reported that workers were afraid of discipline or termination for reporting injuries; 53% reported that they were pressured by company officials to downplay injuries; and more than one-third were asked by company officials to withhold necessary medical treatment to injured workers so the injury wouldn’t be recorded on the OSHA log.
These results are consistent with the results of a recent local union survey conducted by the AFL-CIO and national unions. More than half of local union leaders surveyed reported that there were safety incentive programs, injury discipline programs, absenteeism policies with demerits for injuries and/or post-injury drug testing policies in their workplaces and that these policies discouraged the reporting of workplace injuries by workers.
Employer policies that discourage the reporting of injuries not only undermine the completeness and accuracy of workplace injury data and the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys, more importantly they prevent injured workers from receiving needed medical care and prevent hazardous conditions that injure workers from being identified and corrected.
These destructive and discriminatory practices must be stopped. We applaud the National Emphasis Program on injury reporting and recording launched by the Obama Administration, the first time in two decades that OSHA has focused on employer injury record keeping practices. OSHA must use this initiative not only to evaluate the accuracy of employers’ injury and illness logs but to take strong enforcement action against employers who are thwarting the reporting and recording of injuries and illnesses.
(For a copy of the preliminary results of the AFL-CIO/union survey on Extent and Impact of Employer Programs and Practices on Workers Reporting Their Injuries contact the AFL-CIO Safety and Health Office at 202-637-5366.)
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