Report: Massachusetts Worker Deaths Hit Four-Year High

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.ohsonline.com/articles/62444/

May 7, 2008

A new report documents the loss of 80 workers killed on the job in the Commonwealth in 2007. This is an increase of four from the previous year and the highest number of fatalities in the past four years. Many of these deaths could have been prevented had the employers instituted basic and often inexpensive safety measures.

“The findings are extremely disturbing,” said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health and the report’s co-author. “It’s not just the number, which is unacceptable. It’s also what’s behind the numbers – that so many of these men and women could have been with us today had their employer not given safety short shrift.”

“It is an absolute outrage that in this day and age, we have such a high number of lives lost on the job,” said Robert J. Haynes, President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “The 80 workplace deaths of 2007 represent great personal suffering for loved ones. We have come a long way in improving safety measures at work, but clearly there’s much more work to be done.”

The report released by the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupation Safety and Health (MassCOSH) Dying for Work in Massachusetts: The Loss of Life and Limb in Massachusetts, comes on the eve of Workers Memorial Day. Every year on April 28, workers killed and injured on the job are remembered and calls renewed for improving workplace safety. This year, it will be commemorated on the steps of the Massachusetts State House on April 29, 2008 at noon.

In Massachusetts in 2007, the average fine assessed to an employer with OSHA violations resulting in the death of a worker was less than $5,000. Unfortunately, too many employers determine it to be cheaper to violate OSHA regulations than to comply with them, ignoring the potential human costs. The report also found that at OSHA’s current rate of inspection, it will take a staggering 121 years for the agency to complete inspections of all workplaces under its jurisdiction.

“It appears that some employers view fines as a cost of business,” Goldstein-Gelb said.

FULL story at link.