"Safety regulations don't kill jobs, but unsafe jobs do kill workers," said Trumka.
Workplace safety has improved in the 40 years since the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed, but many workers remain at risk, according to the AFL-CIO. In a new report, “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” the union says that in 2009, there were 4,340 worker deaths on the job – an average of 12 workers killed every day – while an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
More than 4.1 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported, but due to under-reporting, the true toll of job injuries is two to three times greater – about 8 million to 12 million job injuries and illnesses each year, according to the AFL-CIO.
Debilitating injuries and deaths cost the nation an estimated $159 billion to $318 billion a year, based upon data from the latest Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index.
“Our work is never done when it comes to workplace safety – the tragedies in the last year at Massey Energy’s Big Branch mine and the BP Gulf Coast oil rig have shown us that,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
“This comes as attacks by Republican Governors and State Legislatures on workers’ collective bargaining rights in states like Ohio and Wisconsin have further undermined workplace safety by eliminating workers’ ability to bargain over safety regulations through their unions,” the AFL-CIO said in a release accompanying the report.
According to the Death on the Jobs report, Montana led the U.S. with the highest rate of worker fatalities in 2009, with Louisiana, North Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska following close behind. The lowest fatality rates were reported in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Delaware. Economic conditions and layoffs played a major role in the falling rates of workplace fatalities and injuries in 2009.
The report also examines the role of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 40 years after its creation. It finds that OSHA remains underfunded and understaffed while penalties are too low to deter violations.
Federal OSHA inspectors can only inspect workplaces once every 129 years on average and state OSHA inspectors would take 67 years to inspect all workplaces. OSHA penalties for serious violations are $1,052 per violation for federal OSHA inspections and $858 for state plans.
Even in cases involving worker fatalities, the median total penalty was a “measly” $5,600 for federal OSHA and $4,543 for the OSHA state plans. Oregon had the lowest median penalty for fatality investigations while New Hampshire had the highest.
Criminal penalties under OSHA are also weak, the AFL-CIO claims. While there were 346 criminal enforcement cases initiated under federal environmental laws and 239 defendants charged in FY 2010, only 84 cases related to worker deaths have been prosecuted since 1970.
The report details how budget proposals that slash OSHA’s funding – like the Republican House-passed budget – would hurt its already weak enforcement ability.
The story of Sharlene Gerber, a Working America member in Fort Collins, Colorado, illustrates the difficulties that many Americans face in fighting for safer workplaces. In 2008 she had to leave her job at a dairy processing plant in Fort Collins rather than risk injury at work. “The factory owners completely disregarded safety regulations,” she said. “People would hurt their backs lifting things that were too heavy. Our operations supervisor tried talking to the factory management, and we’d expressed our concern numerous times during staff meetings. People wanted to call OSHA, but we were afraid of losing our jobs.”
The report shows that Latino workers continue to be at increased risk of job fatalities. Latino workers had a fatality rate of 3.7 per 100,000 workers in FY 2009, compared with 3.3 per 100,000 in the general population. Over half of those fatalities were among workers born outside the United States.
Today, in over a hundred vigils, rallies, and memorials in twenty-five states, America’s working families will commemorate Workers Memorial Day and honor workers who died or were injured on the job in the past year. A full list of events is available online at http://WorkersMemorial.aflcio.org.
