NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | May 21, 2021 | PAGE 3
DEATH ON THE JOB: The toll of neglect
For 30 years the AFL-CIO has been report-
ing on job safety. Progress has stalled.
By Don McIntosh
April 28 marked 50 years since the law
creating the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) took ef-
fect. Since then, the agency has pre-
vented hundreds of thousands of work-
place deaths. But lately progress has
slowed. Every year since 1992 the AFL-
CIO—the federation most unions belong
to—has published a report on workplace
fatalities, looking at causes, trends, and
the resources dedicated to keeping work-
ers safe. The 2021 edition of the Death
on the Job report shows OSHA resources
have been declining.
OSHA staff levels are near their lowest
since the agency opened 50 years ago. In
1980, the peak of federal OSHA staffing,
there were 1,469 federal OSHA inspec-
tors—14.8 per million workers. Today,
there are only 901 federal OSHA inspec-
tors, 6.1 per million workers.
The report’s fatality statistics are based
on 2019, the most recent year for which
comprehensive data are available. Of the
50 states, Washington was the 5th safest,
with 2.3 deaths per 100,000 workers.
Oregon was the 20th safest, with 3.5
deaths per 100,000 workers.
“The toll of workplace injury, illness
and death remains too high,” the report
concludes.
The Death on the Job report is 262
pages in all. Here are some highlights.
U.S. workers killed on the job: 5,333
DEATH BY THE NUMBERS
UNDERSTAFFED PROTECTORS
(fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2019)
■ To inspect the 10.1 million workplaces under its
jurisdiction, OSHA has only 1,798 inspectors (774
federal and 1,024 state)
■ That works out to one inspector for every 82,881
workers.
■ Oregon has 77 inspectors, one for every 25,370
employees
■ Washington has 116 inspectors, one for every 29,648
employees
■ Florida has the worst ratio of all — one inspector per
164,520 workers.
■ Years it would take before OSHA could expect all job
sites: Washington, at 55 years, is the best in the nation.
Oregon 76 years, is next. The worst? Arkansas, 531
years.
Nationwide 3.5
Washington 2.3
Oregon 3.5
Idaho 4.1
California 2.5
Highest fatality rates
Alaska 14.1
Wyoming 12.0
North Dakota 9.7
Montana 7.8
West Virginia 6.4
MOST DANGEROUS INDUSTRIES
(fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2019)
UNDERPOWERED SANCTIONS
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting 23.1
Mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction 14.6
Transportation and warehousing 13.9
Construction 9.7
Wholesale trade 4.9
■ The median employer penalty, under federal OSHA, for
killing a worker: $12,144.
■ The median employer penalty, under state OSHA
agencies, for killing a worker: $6,899
TOP CAUSES OF DEATH ON THE JOB
#1
#2
#3
Transportation accidents, especially
roadway crashes — 2,122 deaths
Falls, slips and trips —880 deaths
Workplace violence— 841 deaths
SEE THE
FULL
REPORT
aflcio.org/reports/death-
job-toll-neglect-2021
COVID-19
strikes the
workplace
A new and deadly hazard stalked
workplaces in 2020: COVID-19.
Here’s some of the tally so far.
Nursing homes Between May 24,
2020, and March 28, 2021, at least
563,575 cases of COVID-19 among
nursing home staff were confirmed,
with 193,919 suspected infections,
1,875 deaths and 170 reinfections.
Health care At least 458,134 health
care personnel were infected and
1,524 died as of April 4, 2021.
Corrections According to the CDC
data, there have been 87,815 cases
and 143 deaths among correctional
staff between March 31, 2020, and
April 2, 2021.
Agribusiness The nonprofit Food
and Environment Reporting Network
has reported 1,833 outbreaks in the
meatpacking, food-processing and
farming industries, resulting in at
least 89,068 infections and 378
deaths between April 22, 2020, and
April 5, 2021.
Katie Fairbanks, a
reporter with
The Daily News in
Longview,
Washington,
votes by mail to
join the Pacific
Northwest
NewsGuild.
“This is something
that we believe will
make the newspa-
per stronger,” Fair-
banks says.
Longview news reporters go union
Newsroom staff at The Daily
News in Longview, Washington
voted 6-0 to unionize with
NewsGuild-Communications
Workers of America (CWA) in
mail ballots counted May 14. It’s
the latest in a wave of unioniza-
tion at news organizations
around the nation.
The key issue is stability, says
union supporter Katie Fairbanks:
The paper’s eight newsroom
staff members love their work,
but wages of less than $17 an
hour make it hard to stick
around. Fairbanks says turnover
is so high at The Daily News that
its most senior reporter has been
there only five years. Lee Enter-
prises, the Iowa-headquartered
chain that owns The Daily News,
didn’t mount an antiunion cam-
paign or try to talk workers out
of unionizing. Workers expect to
begin negotiations soon on a first
union contact.