Posted on 05/09/2014 3:04:17 PM PDT by mdittmar
Despite significant advancements in workplace health and safety over the past four decades, 150 people will be killed on the job or die from job-related illnesses and diseases today, reports the 2014 edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, released this morning.
And that daily death toll, which has remained steady for the past several years, plus the 11.4 million work-related injuries and illnesses a year show:
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.
Overall in 2012 (the last figures available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) 4,628 workers were killed on the job in the United States, and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, 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 a year.
“A hard day’s work should not be a death sentence,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “It is unconscionable that any worker has to choose between life and putting food on the table. When Congress votes to weaken worker protections or defund critical programs and when big corporations marginalize and de-emphasize worker safety, they insult the memory of all those workers who have died while fighting to attain the American Dream.”
(Excerpt) Read more at aflcio.org ...
About 25 years in mining, strip and deep. We had a man killed in rockfall in ‘57 in my grandfather’s mine. Worst accident my father and I had was a broke leg in the late ‘70’s. Quit in ‘85 drugs were not a problem, hangovers were.
Not gonna happen,they knock on your door and make sure you show up,even if you’re hungover to the point that you can’t get there on your own.
Funny.. Obama’s fear is that he will die at a desk and not on the golf cart..
so he spends a lot of time on the cart.
Found a better job that week,still with them 15 years later,full benefits,7 weeks paid vacation a year,That was the only, and last union job I had.
Work dangerous? Ban it immediately.
Things must be really bad, at least based on 8,865,586 American workers on Social Security disability this time last year.
Perhaps corporations should rethink policies such as strewing oily marbles on work floors and putting walkways over vats of boiling acid.
Drugs were an off and on problem. Mostly weed in AZ, meth in Oregon. Nevada was just alcohol. The line supervisors were responsible for smelling breaths and seeing how the eyes focused as they loaded the cage.
I only ever caught one guy underground and he was so drunk he couldn’t stand up. He said the company was at fault because he was on his last notice for absenteeism. The Steelworkers took his case to arbitration and lost. Their claim was the absentee programs caused unsafe conditions. The program was negotiated so the arbitrator wasn’t buying it. Testifying in the arbitration was my introduction to labor relations where I spent my last twenty working years.
The meth use at the nickel smelter in Oregon cost me a lot of sleep both in worry and being called out on dark hour shifts.
I hate that when that happens.
Okay ... 150 people will die today because of ...
If true, why doesn’t Big Labor provide us the names of these people. Or, how about providing the names of the ones who died six months ago?
It is long past time that people and organizations who spout numbers back them up with actual names.
Am I skeptical - you becha!
I am tired of the constant crises of one form or another; none of which seem to be backed up by hard facts of any kind. This constant level of crises in one form or another has replaced reasoned debates as the Federal Government lurches from one crises to another on alamost a daily basis.
Must have neglected the police union stats. The must get killed at much higher rates, leading to their need to shoot anything that moves.
Someone makes up a statistic out of whole cloth and if it makes a point that the left wants made, it is spread throughout the MSM. It drive me crazy.
I usually respond with some ridiculous stat of my own.
Did you know that 2.75 million Americans died last month trying to have the amount of sex that Sandra Fluke claimed that I needed to pay for her to have?
We had 3 brothers working underground for us all were excellent workers so we didn’t want to lose any of them. The youngest brother would come in so hungover you looked at him and almost felt sorry for him. Dad and I would pick out the most heavy labor job we could find and sweat it out of him. Took about 4 to 5 hours of breaking rocks and such and he would be able to go back to his regular job driving a shuttle car.
Worked on me too when I was younger and stupid, Dad would use the sweat cure on me also. He was an equal opportunity employer in the best sense. He was old school. The men loved him.
I wish they all understood their choices dictate their longevity.
This is just so false I can't believe Trumka said it.
I worked in aerospace, and every once in a while we would have someone die in an accident, but the company and every employee tried hard to prevent that. For every accident, there were many other deaths which came from people working long after they should have retired. A lot of people made very goofy personal decisions which put them in a bad place financially. We had a guy in the receiving department who let his mid-40s daughter and her worthless husband move into his house. Then he had to work to support them when he should have retired. For a long time, he drove a truck which shuttled equipment and supplies between several facilities a few miles apart. Then he had a heart attack, but still wanted to work. So management found a spot shuttling an electric cart all within one facility. Another heart attack and they insisted he retire. He was dead in a week. Trumka would lay this at the company's feet saying the company "worked him to death. Nonsense, it was his daughter and her husband who worked him to death.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.