April 15, 2011:NWLP
4/12/11
10:17 AM
1
Fishing Workers
Fatal injury rate:
200 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 56
2
Logging Workers
Fatal injury rate:
61.8 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 34
3
Aircraft Pilots/Flight Engineers
Fatal injury rate:
57.1 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 63
4
Farmers and Ranchers
Fatal injury rate:
38.5 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 293
5
Roofers
Fatal injury rate:
34.7 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 60
6
Iron and Steel Workers
Fatal injury rate:
30.3 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 18
7
Sanitation Workers,
Including Recycling Collectors
Fatal injury rate:
25.2 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 19
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The most dangerous jobs in America
Fishers, loggers, and airplane pilots
have the most dangerous jobs in the
United States, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Using the most recent data avail-
able, workers in the fishing-related in-
dustry died from workplace injuries at
the rate of 200 per 100,000 full-time
equivalent workers in 2009. That’s 60
times greater than the rate of 3.3 per
100,000 for the overall workforce.
For loggers, the fatality rate was
61.8 per 100,000, and for aircraft pilots
and flight engineers, 57.1 per 100,000.
Construction and transportation and
warehousing occupations registered
the most deaths overall per sector, at
816 and 579 respectively. But because
those deaths are counted against a
larger population of workers in those
fields, the fatality rates for both occu-
pations — 9.7 and 12.1 per 100,000 —
don’t even make the top 10.
The BLS reported that 4,021 men
died from workplace injuries in 2009,
compared with 319 women.
Twenty-six percent of the workers
killed were between the ages of 45 and
54. Four in 10 workplace deaths in
2009 took place while driving. Another
18 percent involved assaults and homi-
cide. Other leading causes included ex-
plosions (3 percent of deaths), falls (14
percent), exposure to harmful sub-
Senate resolution commemorates
Workers Memorial Day in Washington
OLYMPIA — With this month’s
one-year anniversary of the deadly
Tesoro refinery explosion in Anacortes
that killed seven workers, and with the
significant increase in workplace fatal-
ities in the state of Washington in 2010,
this year’s Workers Memorial Day
commemorations planned in Belling-
ham, Everett, Spokane, Tacoma and
Tumwater will be especially poignant
and meaningful.
Additionally, on April 11, State Sen.
Karen Keiser (D-Kent) read a resolu-
tion commemorating April 28 as
Workers Memorial Day. “I have put
forth a Senate Resolution to not only
commemorate Workers Memorial
Day, but to honor the women and men
who have perished as a result of work-
place illnesses, diseases, or accidents,”
Keiser wrote in a letter to the Washing-
ton State Labor Council.
Many union members and families
were in the Senate gallery to listen to
the reading.
For a complete list of Workers Me-
morial Day events planned in Wash-
ington, go to www.wslc.org.
stances (9 percent) and being struck by
objects (10 percent).
The preliminary total of 4,340 fatal
work injuries was down from a final
count of 5,214 fatal work injuries in
2008. The 2009 total represents the
smallest annual preliminary total since
the BLS’Census of Fatal Occupational
Injuries (CFOI) program was first con-
ducted in 1992. Some of that, the bu-
reau told the New York Times, was
caused by a 6 percent decline in total
work hours. But the BLS acknowl-
edged another likely reason for the de-
cline was that deficit-plagued state
agencies had been delayed in collect-
ing information and reporting deaths
resulting from workplace injuries.
The safest jobs in America are in
the fields of education, training and
health services, with 0.7 deaths per
100,000.
Former Labor Press editor helped
pass workers’ comp law in Oregon
Former Oregon Labor Press Editor
William A. Marshall was considered “the
godfather” of Oregon’s workers’ compensa-
tion law. A member of the Multnomah Typo-
graphical Union No. 58, Marshall helped
push through a law to provide compensation
to injured workers and widows and orphans
of those fatally hurt.
In 1912, Gov. Oswald West appointed
Marshall to the first State Industrial Accident
Commission, where he served until 1927. In
that job he became known nationally as an
authority on what at that time was referred to
WILLIAM MARSHALL
as “workermen’s compensation.”
Later, he was appointed an administrator
in Seattle of the federal job-injury compensation program for long-
shoremen and harbor workers.
William Marshall died in Seattle in 1963 at age 88.
8
Industrial Machinery Installers
and Maintenance Workers
Fatal injury rate:
18.5 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 81
9
Drivers,
Including Sales and Truck Operators
Fatal injury rate:
18.3 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 586
10
Construction Laborers
(Not Including Equipment Operators)
Fatal injury rate:
18.3 deaths per 100,000 workers
Total deaths: 224
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PAGE 2
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
APRIL 15, 2011