Our Nation’s Most Valuable Resource: Safe, Healthy Workers

Workplace injuries and illnesses can have a devastating effect on workers and their families. They can force working families out of the middle class and into poverty, or crush a family’s hope of entering the middle class. All working people deserve to return to their families at the end of the workday safe and secure.

Protecting Workers on the Job

In 1970, an estimated 14,000 workers were killed on the job each year, or about 38 workers every day.

Today, with a national workforce almost twice as large, that number has fallen to about 13 workers per day.

Injuries and illnesses also are down dramatically — from 10.9 per 100 workers per year in 1972 to fewer than 3.2 in 2014.

It’s no coincidence that these numbers improved after the creation of the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1971, which is charged with ensuring safe and healthy workplaces.

OSHA is a small agency relative to the scope of its mandate, with about one compliance officer for every 62,000 workers − even when state partners are included.

During the Obama administration, OSHA implemented a new Enforcement Weighting System that focuses on some of the most hazardous workplace issues, and allows the agency to more effectively target its resources to those critical hazards.

The agency also developed a special enforcement program to target recalcitrant violators who demonstrate indifference to their legal responsibilities, and has increased the use of corporate-wide settlement agreements.

Additionally, OSHA protects whistleblowers who raise concerns about safety and health on the job. In 2012, OSHA strengthened the protection of whistleblowers by creating a new Directorate for OSHA’s Whistleblower program, adding new investigators and reducing a sizable backlog of cases while completing more investigations every year.

In fiscal year 2014, OSHA awarded approximately $36 million in total damages to whistleblower complainants, and has awarded over $154 million since fiscal year 2009.

OSHA’s work holding employers accountable for safety and health practices spans many industries:

In 2016, Ashley Furniture entered into a settlement agreement with OSHA following a string of investigations prompted by a worker losing three fingers. Safety inspectors uncovered more than 1,000 injuries over a three-year period in a workforce of just 4,500 employees. The settlement included a robust safety program to be led directly by a senior company official, independent auditing and a $1.75 million fine.

Republic Steel, a leading North American steel supplier, entered into a settlement with OSHA after the agency investigated reports of fall hazards among workers at a Canton, Ohio, plant. During the course of our investigation, we uncovered serious injuries stemming from falls at that site, and further found a pattern of fall hazards at numerous other Republic Steel worksites. Despite agreeing to fix all hazards cited, Republic Steel continued to violate safety standards, and OSHA has sustained efforts to improve conditions for Republic Steel employees.

Championing the Safety and Health of Miners

Following the worst coal mining disaster in decades at Upper Big Branch in West Virginia that killed 29 miners, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health Joseph Main made clear that the Mine Safety and Health Administration would no longer tolerate business as usual.

Reforms to the Pattern of Violations program led to a 40 percent reduction in violations by the top 200 mines cited for the most serious violations between 2010 and 2015. And special impact inspections have led to improved and sustained compliance with the most serious violations dropping by 41 percent, and lost-time injuries by 5 percent.

MSHA also launched the “Rules to Live By” initiative to prevent mining deaths by focusing on the most commonly cited standards where violations have caused or contributed to fatal accidents in the industry. The initiative combines industry outreach and education components with enhanced enforcement efforts.

For workplaces to be truly safe, miners must be able to speak up about safety and health hazards without fear of retaliation.

That’s why the department filed a historic 230 discrimination cases on behalf of miners from 2009–2015, dwarfing the 65 cases filed in the prior 14 years, from 1995–2008.

As a result of one of the most far-reaching accident investigations in MSHA’s history, MSHA eventually uncovered that Massey Energy, then the owner of Upper Big Branch, promoted and enforced a workplace culture that valued production over safety. In an effort to maximize profit, management knowingly broke the law, endangered miners, and put their lives at risk every time they entered the mine.

Our findings showed that Massey management created a culture of fear and intimidation in their miners to help hide their reckless practices. In December 2015, the company’s CEO was found guilty of conspiring to violate mine safety and health standards and is currently serving a prison sentence pending appeal.

Through all of these actions, we are sending the signal that we have miners’ backs − and mines are safer today.

Since 2009, coal mining deaths and metal and nonmetal deaths have been at their lowest recorded levels in six out of seven years. Fatalities were at their lowest levels ever in 2015, with 28 deaths.

Any death or injury is still one too many. But these downward trends are in part the result of our efforts to make sure each worker comes home at the end of his or her shift.

Together, working with our federal and state partners, industry groups, labor unions, employers and others, we can ensure that all employers and employees have the knowledge and tools necessary to keep workers safe.

To report a worker safety or health issue or to find out more about staying in compliance with health and safety laws, please visit OSHA’s website or call 1–800–321–6742, or MSHA’s website or call 1–800–746–1553.

This post is part of our “Working for You” series, highlighting how the Department of Labor, and the efforts of the Obama administration, are helping hardworking Americans succeed. View them all at www.medium.com/workingforyou.