Workplace fatalities rose in 2003 to a total of 5,559 deaths, according to the Department of Labor. Here’s a breakdown from the DOL report about the industry segments with the most deaths.
The construction industry had the most deaths – 1,126, followed by 805 deaths in the transportation and warehousing sector.
When the number of workers in each industry was considered, the highest death rate was in the sector of agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, with 31.2 deaths per 100,000 workers. Mining was next, with a rate of 26.9 per 100,000 workers. Construction’s rate was 11.7, and transportation and warehousing’s was 17.5.
The most frequent work-related deaths were on highways – 1,350 last year, compared with 1,373 in 2002.
Texas had 491 job-related deaths last year, earning the dubious distinction of being the state with the highest rate of increase for work-related fatalities. Texas increased by 17.7 percent in 2003, while the national number of fatalities increased by less than one percent compared to 2002.
One of the other trends that the Department of Labor data indicates is that Hispanic workers died on the job more frequently than others, with a rate of 4.5 deaths per 100,000 compared to a rate of 4.0 for whites and 3.7 for blacks.
We’ve posted about the high death rate for Mexican workers before. A recent disturbing report by the News & Observer of Raleigh depicts illegal practices in camps for migrant farm workers in North Carolina. When you read about the shocking and flagrant practices – it’s almost unbelievable to think such abuses occur in the United States – it’s not hard to understand why the death rate is so high.
North Carolina farmers have a legal pipeline to foreign workers, known as the federal H-2A program. But the number of H-2A workers has fallen 15 percent since 2002, from about 10,000 to 8,500 this year. Growers say the rising costs associated with the program have contributed to the decline.
H-2A workers in North Carolina are entitled to a wage of $8.06 an hour, workers compensation and round-trip travel reimbursement. In July, the Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee began a campaign to unionize H-2A workers.
Instead, farms increasingly find workers through labor contractors.
Whatever the industry, whatever the state, whatever the demographic group, it’s distressing to see work-related fatalities increase. It’s hard not to see a parallel with the “kinder, gentler” OSHA of recent years. As an industry, this is a trend we have to stop in its tracks.
Posts Tagged ‘work fatalities’
Workplace deaths increased in 2003
Thursday, September 30th, 2004Workplace “freak accidents” as a media myth
Monday, May 10th, 2004In a recent post, Jordan Barab at Confined Space takes issue with the way the media often portrays work fatalities as “freak events.” Jordan says that as far as he’s concerned, a freak accident is “when you’re sitting at your desk, minding your own business and a runaway satellite crashes through the roof over your head.”
He was reacting to the reportage on a recent on-the-job death of a steelworker who was killed after being struck in the head by material suspended from a crane. Those of us who make safety our business know that, sadly enough, there is nothing unusual about such a death. One of the reasons we so often use the term “injury” on Workers Comp Insider rather than “accident” or “incident” is to emphasize that these are human events that take a toll on flesh and blood people like you and me.
His point was that portraying work deaths as “freak,” “acts of God,” “bad luck,” or any other events triggered by the fickle finger of fate absolves everyone from responsibility. Far more often than not, work deaths are predictable and preventable. In another post on the language used to report work deaths, he states:
Don’t let the media or employers ever get away with dismissing a preventable workplace tragedy as “freak.” Don’t let them leave the impression that there was nothing that could have been done, or the worker’s luck had just run out. What to do? Reporters need to be educated about how such tragedies can be prevented. And employers need to be challenged when they assert that no one could have forseen what happened. That’s almost never the case and it certainly wasn’t the case in the incident mentioned above. Don’t let them get away with it.
Modern Day Slavery
Thursday, April 22nd, 2004“Slavery is not just the shameful stuff of history books – not in Florida”
“For nine months, The Palm Beach Post explored the roots of modern-day slavery. Reporters and photographers traveled to destitute Mexican villages, crossed the desert with a smuggler, rode across the U.S. with illegal immigrants, found new claims of slavery, uncovered rampant Social Security fraud, and found that Florida’s famous orange juice comes with hidden costs.”
This series is stunning. That gross human rights and labor abuses occur in this country is not a surprise; that they thrive on such a scale and with such complicity from an entire industry, and with a nod and a wink from state authorities — well, color me naive, but that’s the shocker.
The text and photos speak for themselves. Here is an excerpt from the introduction:
“They slip across the Mexican border at great peril, cross the country in the dark hollows of vans, stay silent as they are “bought” and “sold” in fruit groves and rest stops dotting the American landscape.
A destitute minority in a wealthy, well-fed society, they are packed like prisoners into unfit housing, ferried to work in unsafe vehicles and compelled to labor long hours — under fake names and numbers — for substandard wages.
Enslaved by debt from the very moment they arrive, they contribute mightily to Florida’s $62 billion agricultural industry, yet they earn little in return.
In the worst cases, they are threatened, beaten and locked up in their dingy quarters to prevent their escape.
This is the state of the harvest in 2003.
“The richest, most powerful people in the state are benefiting from this,” says Rob Williams, director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, a legal advocacy group in Florida. “They don’t want it to change.”
