Workplace Safety: The 5 Most Dangerous Jobs In America

Rights, Safety

most dangerous jobsJust over 4,600 people were killed on the job in 2011. What is being done to increase workplace safety, and what can employees do to protect themselves in a hazardous work environment?

Today’s Most Dangerous Jobs

Most work safety violations resulting in death seem to occur in the construction industry (think scaffolding, ladders, and other fall hazards). According to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Heath (COSH Network), the most work injuries occur in the following industries:

1. Transportation and warehousing

2. Construction

3. Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting

4. Government

5. Professional businesses and services

The leading cause of death — by a landslide — was transportation incidents (nearly 1900), followed by violence or other injury by people or animals (780), fatal contact with objects and equipment (708), and trips/slips/falls (666). In addition to construction work, waste recycling and fish processing also seemed to be specifically dangerous areas to work in.

Issues in Workplace Safety

Workplace safety advocates are particularly concerned with the health and safety of temporary workers, immigrant workers, young workers, and workers in the energy sector–where there is a lack of safety training, language barriers, and immigrant workers feel forced to do dangerous jobs for fear of deportation upon refusal.

As the Center for Public Integrity recently reported, there’s little incentive for host employers to rigorously train and supervise temp workers because staffing agencies carry their workers’ comp insurance. If an agency has a high number of injuries within its workforce, it — not the host employer — is penalized with higher premiums. Recent Massachusetts legislation requires agencies to provide workers with safety information and training before beginning their new jobs, and many states are doing the same.

Legal Protections Available for Workers

The Occupational Safety and Health Act contains a “general duty clause” which requires employers to:

  1. Maintain or adopt conditions or practices necessary to protect workers.
  2. Be compliant with standards OSHA standards.
  3. Ensure that employees have and use protective equipment when necessary.

The catch is, OSHA has established regulations for when it may act under the clause. The four criteria are:

  1. There must be a hazard.
  2. The hazard is obvious and/or has been brought to the employer’s attention.
  3. The hazard could cause or is likely to cause serious harm or death.
  4. The hazard must be correctable (OSHA recognizes not all hazards are correctable).

This is how companies squeak by without penalties for accidents at work, so report any hazards to your employer immediately.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act limits the fines that OSHA can levy against negligent employers to a maximum of $7,000 per safety violation deemed “serious”–even if the violations resulted in a worker death. The average fine under OSHA for a serious violation is a paltry $1,680. Many companies may simply factor in the fines as a cost of doing business instead of ensuring on-the-job safety for workers. OSHA typically cites companies for safety violations, i.e. improper employee training (such as how to use heavy machinery safely) that result in injury or death.

Improving Workplace Safety Laws

There’s nothing wrong with being a whistleblower, and you need not be fired for reporting a problem. If you have a complaint, make sure to track correspondence with your employer in writing so you can prove that you tried to correct the problem. Refer to OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program website to file a complaint.