Massachusetts Workers Compensation Lawyers Blog

When employers take steps to try to protect workers, often the focus is on preventing accidents that lead to injuries. An accident has an immediate and devastating impact when it occurs and the effects are immediately felt by workers, their families and the employer. However, EHS Today has recently suggested that preventing workplace accidents should not necessarily be the primary focus of employers who want to improve overall safety and work conditions. Instead, EHS Today suggests that the real concern for employers should perhaps be centered on preventing work-related illnesses and exposure to hazardous substances.

Our Boston work injury attorneys know that thousands of workers are exposed to hazardous substances and toxins on the job and develop work-related illnesses as a result. We urge employers to maintain a focus both on preventing workplace injuries and on preventing workplace illnesses in order to create the safest worksite possible.

Workplace Illnesses a Major Cause for Concern

According to EHS Today, there are more than 2.3 million workers who die each year across the globe as a result of hazards in the workplace. An estimated 318,000 of these deaths are due to occupational injuries or injuries that happen on the job. The remainder of the deaths result from work-related illnesses. This means that as many as 2.3 million people die each and every year because their jobs made them sick.

Despite the fact that many more people die each year as a result of illness than injury, most workplace safety initiatives focus on preventing workplace accidents. While this is important, employers also need to give equal or greater attention to preventing circulatory diseases and cancers. Together, cancer and work-related circulatory diseases cause as many as 55 percent of all worker deaths worldwide while injuries cause only 18 percent.

Just in the United States alone, an estimated 37,000 to 61,000 people die each year from occupational cancer. This number is inexact and is a large range because it is often difficult to conclusively prove that a particular case of cancer can be tied to a workplace incident or exposure to toxins at work. This is because there are generally many causes of cancers and because cancers develop slowly over time. A worker exposed to a toxin at work could develop cancer five, ten, or even twenty years or more after the initial exposure occurred.

Unfortunately, this long period between toxic exposure and workplace illness is a major part of the reason why employers tend to focus more on resolving immediate situations and preventing accidents that occur and cause injuries right away rather than focusing on preventing workplace exposure to toxins. An employer who has an employee in an accident will have an immediate workers’ compensation claim and an immediate OSHA inspection may be prompted. Exposing workers to a toxin, on the other hand, comes with no immediate consequences.

The problem with this focus on preventing accidents is that work-related illness rates are on the rise in industrialized countries even as workplace injury rates drop due to prevention efforts and workplace safety laws. Employers need to make a commitment to reversing this troubling trend and can do so by taking prevention of workplace illness seriously.
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Construction projects, road repair, and other outdoor maintenance projects often take place as the weather heats up. Though workers may be out of the elements, including rain and snow, they may also face an additional threat–heat illness.

This summer, OSHA is working to create awareness around the deadly (but often overlooked) risk of heat illness. OSHA’s nationwide initiative, the “Heat Illness Prevention Campaign,” is focused on teaching workers and employers about the potential dangers of hot weather.

Every year, thousands of workers get sick from exposure to heat. In the most severe cases, workers can lose their lives. Our Boston workers’ compensation lawyers have seen a wide range of injuries and illnesses impact the lives of America’s workers. We are dedicated to preventing these accidents and helping victims and their families recover in the event of an injury or death.

Any workers who are exposed to humidity and hot weather could be at risk of heat illness. Workers who work with heavy machinery or who exert an extreme amount of physical energy in hot climates are at additional risk. If you are a worker who does heavy lifting, wears heavy protective clothing, or you work with equipment that projects heat, you should take extra precaution to prevent heat illness. While some workers can build up a tolerance to heat stroke over time, new workers should be especially aware of the risk of how heat may affect their body and remain particularly wary of heat illness symptoms.

What is heat illness? Under extreme heat conditions, sweating is not sufficient to cool down the human body. Workers who are wearing heavy protective gear are unable to effectively cool down. Even workers who are wearing light clothing may not be able to reduce body temperature from dangerous levels.

Heat illnesses can range in severity from heat rash and heat cramps to heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Some cases can cause permanent brain damage and the most severe heat illnesses can result in death. If you suspect that you are suffering from a heat illness you should seek medical attention as soon as possible. Similarly, if you suspect that a fellow co-worker is suffering from heat illness, you should take immediate action and call 9-1-1.

There are a number of precautions you can take to prevent heat stroke. OSHA advises the simple formula of water, rest, and shade. Employees and employers should be aware of the dangers of heat illness and take necessary steps to prevent illness and injury. This may include drinking water, taking breaks, and limiting time out in direct sunlight. Employers should implement these prevention tips during training if workers are going to be in the heat for long periods of time.

Since the 2011 launch of the campaign, OSHA has disseminated information to more than 7 million workers and employers. The information has come in the form of posters, cards, and training guides. OSHA aims to prevent these illnesses as well as give employees and employers the information they need to react quickly in the event of heat illness. OSHA has also partnered with other state agencies and organizations to create more awareness around heat illness.
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Dangerous working conditions continue to threaten the health and safety of employees. While work-related injury or disease could affect any worker, some industries and individuals are at a higher risk.

Recent studies and reports indicate that minorities and immigrant workers in construction, maintenance and other hazardous industries are at greater risk of accidents, injury, and fatality. Our Boston workers’ compensation attorneys are experienced in representing victims of injury and death, including minorities, immigrants and their families impacted by workplace accidents.

The Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA) is the agency charged with regulating workplace injury and creating safe working conditions to protect workers. OSHA has the authority to create laws and regulations and to enforce these regulations by assigning penalties when a company or organization is in violation of OSHA standards. OSHA is responsible for overseeing workplace conditions, including equipment, training, and safety policies. When a company fails to meet guidelines or violates a regulation, OSHA can fine that agency, even if no accident or injury occurred.

Foreign-born workers in the United States constitute 16% of the labor market. These workers have a higher likelihood of working in service occupations including production, transportation, moving occupations, natural resources development industries, maintenance, and construction. Nearly half of this foreign-born labor force market is Hispanic.

As we mentioned in a previous post, more blacks and Hispanics are injured on the job. This may because they make up a higher portion of workers in dangerous industries. Undocumented workers in these industries may also be less likely to speak up about OSHA violations or other known dangerous working conditions. Many undocumented workers are worried about deportation. They may also not realize that they are also protected by OSHA and can file civil actions against negligent individuals or entities when they suffer an injury.

While some critics of OSHA suggest that its standards limit hiring capabilities, the agency has saved lives and prevented injury to millions of American workers. Despite this suggestion, it has been proven that OSHA inspections can also save companies billions of dollars in fees and costs for workers’ compensation, lost hours and the lost productivity that can occur after a workplace injury or fatality.

Workers who are in fishing, logging, construction and the oil industries are at the greatest risk of fatality. In any industry, companies must be held to high standards to protect the interests of employees. Worksites that remain unexamined or fall below OSHA standards could create a serious hazard for workers resulting in permanent injury or wrongful death. Though occupational fatality rates have declined since the establishment of OSHA, there is some evidence that safety conditions are in decline. According to data collected from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) there are about 13 deaths per day caused by work-accidents.

Greater workplace danger can put additional minorities and immigrants at a greater risk.
If you or someone you love was injured in a workplace accident, it is critical to involve an experienced advocate as soon as possible. Independent and OSHA investigations can be critical to proving negligence in a case involving workplace injury.
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Factory workers have faced struggles for a safe workplace for generations. Early abysmal conditions in factories highlighted in works like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle led to the rise of unions and to the passage of many workplace safety laws in the United States. Yet, even today, factory workers still continue to work in unsafe conditions, in old and dangerous buildings, doing repetitive tasks that put stress on their joints and the soft tissues of their bodies, year in and year out.

Our Boston work injury attorneys know that there is little oversight of factory conditions due to understaffing of OSHA workers that results in inspections of workplaces being far too infrequent. While conditions are better in the United States than in other parts of the world, conditions are still far from optimal and workers are still at risk of being hurt or killed on the job. More needs to be done to make factories safe and one MIT Political Science Professor has offered some suggestions on what could be done to improve conditions.

Improving Conditions for Workers in Factories

According to MIT’s website, MIT political scientist Richard Locke has studied the question of factory safety issues for more than a decade. Locke has worked with a team of researchers, which collected information from companies worldwide and has explored different options for improving workplace safety conditions.

Locke had long believed that the best solution would involve multi-national firms auditing factories where suppliers worked to produce goods. These audits would focus on safety violations and the corporations could threaten to withhold business from suppliers that did not maintain safe factory conditions.

Unfortunately, Locke now believes that private oversight and the free market system may not be enough to keep workers safe. Locke cites dangerous conditions, excessive hours, poor wages and child labor as major concerns for many factories. While some of these problems aren’t major issues in the United States due to tough child labor laws and reasonably effective enforcement of wage and hour laws, other problems are serious concerns locally including the risk of dangerous conditions. All of these problems are major issues throughout the world, however, and lives are being lost as the recent factory collapse in Bangladesh so tragically illustrated.

Now, Locke believes that the best and perhaps only way to combat these problems is for governments to protect certain fundamental rights including the freedom to bargain collectively. Locke suggests that the best solution may be to consider factories as part of a global supply chain and to facilitate active collaboration between the private sector, states and nongovernmental organizations to set and maintain standards for acceptable working conditions that will help to protect workers.

In the United States, of course, we already have government oversight. However, it is questionable whether that oversight is effective in light of the recent AFL-CIO report indicating that workplace inspections are rare and that fines are too low to actually encourage employers to follow safety rules.

If Locke’s position is correct and the only fix for workers is a partnership between the private sector and government, then his advice is not just important for people in countries like Bangladesh but is also important here in the United States where we have a long way to go yet to make factories as safe as possible for employees.
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