EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This 2015 edition
of Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect marks the 24th year the AFL-CIO has produced
a report on the state of safety and health
protections for America’s workers.
More than 510,000 workers now can say their lives have been saved since the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health
Act of 1970, which promised
workers in this country the right to a safe job. Since that time, workplace
safety and health conditions have improved, but too many workers
remain at serious risk of injury,
illness or death.
Many preventable workplace
disasters do not make the headlines, and kill and disable thousands of workers
each year.
The High Toll of Job Injuries, Illnesses
and Deaths
In 2013, 4,585
workers were killed
on the job in the United States,
and an estimated
50,000 died from occupational diseases,
resulting in a loss of 150 workers each day from hazardous working
conditions.
Nearly 3.8 million work-related injuries
and illnesses were reported, but many injuries are not reported. The true toll is likely two to three times greater,
or 7.6 million to 11.4 million injuries
each year.
Over the past four years, the job fatality
rate has declined
slightly each year, with a rate of 3.3 deaths per 100,000
workers in 2013 compared
with a rate of 3.6 per 100,000
workers in 2010.
North Dakota had the highest
fatality rate in the nation
(14.9 per 100,000
workers), followed
by Wyoming (9.5),
West Virginia (8.6), Alaska (7.9) and New Mexico (6.7).
The lowest state fatality
rate (1.6 per 100,000 workers) was reported
for Hawaii, followed by Washington (1.7), Connecticut and Massachusetts (1.8), and New York and Rhode Island (2.1).
North Dakota continues to stand out as an exceptionally dangerous and deadly
place to work. For the third year in a row, North Dakota
had the highest
job fatality rate in the nation. The state’s job fatality rate of 14.9 per 100,000
was more than four times the national average.
North Dakota’s fatality
rate and number of deaths
have more than doubled since 2007. Fifty-six
workers were killed in North Dakota in 2013. The fatality rate in the mining
and oil and gas extraction sector in North Dakota was an alarming
84.7 per 100,000,
nearly seven times the national fatality
rate of 12.4 per 100,000
in this industry;
and the construction sector fatality
rate in North Dakota was 44.1 per 100,000,
more than four times the national fatality
rate of 9.7 per 100,000 for construction.
Latino workers
continue to be at increased risk of job fatalities. The fatality rate among Latino workers increased
in 2013 to 3.9 per 100,000 workers, up from a rate of 3.7 per 100,000 in 2012. At the same time, the number
and rate of fatalities for all other
races declined or stayed
the same. There were 817 Latino workers killed
on the job in 2013, up
from 748 deaths in 2012. Sixty-six
percent of the fatalities (542 deaths) in 2013 were among workers born outside the United States.
There was a sharp increase
in Latino deaths among
grounds maintenance workers. Specifically, deaths related to tree trimming and pruning doubled
among Latino workers since 2012, and 87% of the landscaping deaths among Latino workers were immigrants.
Contractors accounted for 16% of all worker fatalities in 2013, or 749 deaths.
Construction and extraction workers accounted for half of these deaths.
Thirty-five percent of contract workers who died in the construction industry
were actually contracted to another industry
when they died. Temporary
workers and other contract workers often
work in dangerous jobs, with no safety and health protections or training.
Nearly 3.8 million work-related injuries
and illnesses were reported
in 2013. Due to widespread underreporting of workplace
injuries and illnesses, this number understates the problem. The true toll is estimated to be 7.6 million to 11.4 million
injuries and illnesses each year. Musculoskeletal disorders
caused by ergonomic
hazards accounted for 33.5% of all serious injuries
in 2013.
Workplace violence continues to be the second
leading cause of job fatalities in the United States (after transportation incidents), responsible for 773 worker deaths and 26,520 lost-time injuries
in 2013. Women workers
suffered 70% of the lost-time
injuries related to workplace
violence.
The cost of job injuries
and illnesses is enormous—estimated at $250 billion
to $360 billion
a year.
Job Safety Oversight and Enforcement
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the state OSHA plans have a total of 1,882 inspectors (847 federal and 1,035 state inspectors) to inspect the 8 million workplaces under
the OSH Act’s jurisdiction. This means there are enough inspectors for federal
OSHA to inspect workplaces once every 140 years, on average, and for state OSHA plans to inspect workplaces once every 91 years.
The current level of federal
and state OSHA inspectors provides
one inspector for every 71,695 workers.
OSHA penalties
have increased under the Obama administration, but still are too low to deter violations. The average penalty
for a serious violation
of the law in FY 2014 was
$1,972 for federal OSHA and $1,043
for the state plans.
Penalties for worker deaths continue
to be minimal. For FY 2014, the median penalty
in fatality cases investigated by federal OSHA was $5,050,
and for the OSHA state plans the median penalty
was $4,438.
Criminal penalties under the OSHA law are weak. They are limited
to cases in which a willful violation results
in a worker death,
resulting in misdemeanors. Since 1970, only
88 cases have been prosecuted, with defendants serving a total of 100 months
in jail. During this time there were more than 390,000 worker deaths.
Both OSHA and MSHA have stepped
up enforcement, particularly for employers who have a history
of serious, repeated and willful
violations, and strengthened whistleblower programs to protect workers who report
job injuries or hazards from retaliation.
OSHA has launched special initiatives to address the hazards faced
by Latino, immigrant and temporary workers, all of whom are at high risk of injury and death.
Regulatory Action
After eight years
of neglect and inaction under
the Bush administration, progress in issuing new needed protections under the Obama administration has been slow and disappointing. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has blocked
and delayed important rules.
Since 2009, only four major final
OSHA safety and health standards have been issued.
In 2013, this de facto regulatory freeze began to thaw. The proposed tougher
silica rule that had been blocked
by OMB for two-and-one-half years
was released. When finalized, this new rule will prevent 700 deaths and 1,600 cases of silica-related disease
each year.
In April 2014, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) issued an important final standard to reduce coal miners’ exposure
to respirable dust to help finally end black lung disease.
But many rules are long overdue, including OSHA rules
on confined space entry in construction, beryllium, combustible dust and infectious diseases, and MSHA’s
rule on proximity
detection for mobile
mining equipment.
The Republican majority
in Congress is trying to stop all new protections and prevent these important
measures from becoming
law. It is critical that the Obama administration finalize the OSHA silica standard and other key rules as soon as possible
so the president can veto any legislation designed to delay or overturn
these measures.
Much Work Remains
to Be Done
Very simply, workers need more job safety
and health protection.
Funding and staffing
at both job safety agencies should be increased to provide for enhanced oversight
of worksites and timely
and effective enforcement.
Ergonomic hazards, infectious diseases, chemical exposures and workplace
violence pose serious and growing risks
to workers, but are largely unregulated. Enhanced protections, mandatory standards and greater oversight
are sorely needed to protect workers from these threats.
The serious
safety and health problems
and increased risk of fatalities and injuries faced
by Latino and immigrant workers must be given increased attention.
The escalating fatalities and injuries in the oil and gas extraction industry
demand intensive and comprehensive intervention. Without action, the workplace
fatality crisis in this industry will only get worse as production intensifies and expands.
The widespread problem of injury
underreporting must be addressed, and employer policies and practices that discourage the reporting of injuries through
discipline or other means must be prohibited.
Thousands of workers still face retaliation by their employers each year for raising job safety concerns
or reporting injuries—fired or harassed simply because
they want a safe place to work. The OSH Act’s whistleblower and anti-retaliation provisions are too weak to provide
adequate protection to workers
who try to exercise
their legal rights, and must be strengthened.
The job safety laws need to be strengthened.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act is now more than 40 years old and is out of date. Congress should
pass the Protecting America’s Workers
Act to extend the law’s coverage to workers
currently excluded, strengthen civil
and criminal penalties
for violations, enhance anti-discrimination protections, and strengthen the rights of workers,
unions and victims.
Improvements in the Mine Safety
and Health Act are needed
to give MSHA more authority to enhance
enforcement against repeated
violators and to shut down dangerous mines.
The nation must renew the commitment to protect workers from injury, disease
and death and make this a high priority. We must demand that employers
meet their responsibilities to protect workers and hold them accountable if they put workers
in danger. Only then
can the promise of safe jobs for all of America’s workers be fulfilled.