150 US workers die every day from hazardous working conditions

US

About 150 US workers die every day from hazardous working conditions, according to a new report by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US.

In 2013, 4,585 US workers were killed on the job and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, found the report. Additionally, about 3.8m work-related injuries and illnesses were reported. The AFL-CIO estimates that the real number of work-related injuries is somewhere between 7.6m to 11.4m each year as many work-related injuries are not reported.

For the third year in a row, North Dakota was the deadliest state to work in the US.

"The state's job fatality rate of 14.9 per 100,000 was more than four times the national average," according to the report. North Dakota's fatality rate has more than doubled since 2007, with 56 workers killed on the job 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."

Other deadliest states include Wyoming with 9.5 deaths for every 100,000 workers, West Virginia with 8.6, Alaska with 7.9, and New Mexico with 6.7. On the end of the spectrum are Hawaii, which has the lowest fatality rate of 1.6 deaths per 100,000 workers, Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

"America's workers shouldn't have to choose between earning a livelihood and risking their life, yet every day too many end up on the wrong end of that choice," the AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, said in a statement. "Corporations are prospering while working people suffer because of corporate negligence and insufficient government oversight. We must go beyond mourning those we've lost, and take bold, decisive action to ensure that a day's work brings opportunity, not the risk of death or injury."

The report comes at a time when union membership has been falling. Over the last 30 years, labor union membership has fallen by half, according to Pew Research Center. In 2014, about 11% of all wage and salary workers were in a union, down from 22% in 1983.

In addition to reporting on workplace deaths and work-related injuries and deaths, the 216-page report also details current job safety oversight and enforcement and calls for additional regulatory action.

While the overall fatality rate has decreased in the last four years, dropping to 3.3 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2013 from 3.6 in 2010, the fatality rate for Latino workers increased to 3.9 from 3.7 in 2012. The report found that 817 Latino workers were killed on the job in 2013, up from 748 deaths in 2012, and that 66% of the fatalities, equivalent to 542 deaths, in 2013 were among workers born outside the US.

Workplace deaths are not always caused by accidents. According to the report, workplace violence is the second leading cause of job fatalities in the US and was responsible for 773 workers deaths and 26,520 injuries in 2013.

"Women workers suffered 70% of the lost-time injuries related to workplace violence," according to the report.

The pertinent question is: why is capitalism regressing? Why is it reproducing conditions of `primitive accumulation' stage of 18th and 19th centuries? Why is technology not being applied to maximise profits and reduce labour costs? Why in the age of late capitalism, sub-human conditions of early capitlalism are returning?

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Power is in the hands of the rich few, all the time that is the case, ordinary people suffer and we go backwards.

If you think this was bad, imagine how it was during the Republican Bush administration, when the BP oil spill (and many others--BP was just symbolic) happened precisely because of RW laxity on safety and regulation.

Regulations are put in place as a part of civilization.  But the RW--as always, overly friendly to making personal fortunes--would rather see a free-for-all in which safety and security are sacrificed to the capitalist god.

Original Quill wrote:If you think this was bad, imagine how it was during the Republican Bush administration, when the BP oil spill  (and many others--BP was just symbolic) happened precisely because of RW laxity on safety and regulation.

Regulations are put in place as a part of civilization.  But the RW--as always, overly friendly to making personal fortunes--would rather see a free-for-all in which safety and security are sacrificed to the capitalist god.

let me correct you there Quill....capitalist R/W ers......

darknessss wrote:let me correct you there Quill....capitalist R/W ers......

Fair point.