Tomorrow, April 28, is Workers Memorial Day, and across the country various ceremonies are being planned to honor and remember workers who died on the job. Here in West Virginia, the state AFL-CIO lists an event being held at UMWA District 17 Union Square, in Beckley.
The Web site of United Support & Memorial for Workplace Fatalities has more information about Workers Memorial Day and Hazards Magazine has links from around the world on the issue. There are also some congressional hearings planned, including one featuring my friend Dr. Celeste Monforton from The Pump Handle blog.
The AFL-CIO will be releasing its annual, Death on the Job report, and I thought I would pass on a few of the highlights…
In 2007, the most recent year for which job fatality data is available, 5,657 workers lost their lives on the job as a result of traumatic injuries. While this is a decline in worker deaths from 2006, when 5,840 fatal injuries were reported, on average 15 workers die every day because of job injuries. In 2007, more than 4 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported by employers, but due to limitations in the injury reporting system and underreporting of workplace injuries, this number understates the problem. The true toll is estimated to be two to three times greater or 8 to 12 million injuries and illnesses a year.
The cost of these injuries and illnesses is enormous—estimated at $145 billion to $290 billion a year for direct and indirect costs of disabling injuries. But these estimates are based upon only injuries that are disabling and that are reported by employers, and understate the full extent of occupational injuries and illnesses and their associated costs.
And what about OSHA? Isn’t it supposed to protect workers?
When it comes to job safety enforcement and coverage, it is clear that OSHA lacks sufficient resources to protect workers adequately. A combination of too few OSHA inspectors and low penalties makes the threat of an OSHA inspection hollow for too many employers. More than 8.8 million workers still are without OSHA coverage.
OSHA’s resources remain inadequate to meet the challenge of ensuring safe working conditions for America’s workers. In FY 2008, there were at most 2,043 federal and state OSHA inspectors responsible for enforcing the law at approximately eight million workplaces.12 In FY 2008, the 799 federal OSHA inspectors conducted 38,652 inspections (727 fewer than in FY 2007), and the 1,244 inspectors in state OSHA agencies combined conducted 57,720 inspections (245 more than in FY 2007).
At its current staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA 137 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once. In five states (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Delaware), it would take 150 years or more for OSHA to pay a single visit to each workplace. In 20 states, it would take between 100 and 149 years to visit each workplace once. Inspection frequency is better in states with OSHA-approved plans, yet still far from satisfactory. In these states, it would now take the state OSHA’s a combined 66 years to inspect each worksite under state jurisdiction once.
The current level of federal and state OSHA inspectors provides one inspector for every 66,258 workers. This compares to a benchmark of one labor inspector for every 10,000 workers recommended by the International Labor Organization for industrialized countries.
And in West Virginia?
It would take the OSHA office in Charleston nearly 100 years to inspect every workplace in the Mountain State.
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Ken: Thanks for posting this. After hearing Secretary Solis say yesterday that “The Department of Labor is back in the business of enforcing safety standards,” I now have hope the Obama administration will put people in charge of OSHA and MSHA who will do exactly that, and that includes providing the kind of enforcement funding needed to hire inspectors.