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Thursday, February 21, 2008

How Many Workers are Injured on the Job? Don't Ask OSHA.

Bob Whitmore, director of the recordkeeping system for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), says his agency doesn't have a good idea of how many injuries and illnesses are actually occurring in U.S. workplaces, according to The Charlotte Observer:

Whitmore has directed OSHA's record-keeping system since 1988. Early in his career, he said, OSHA looked closely at companies' injury and illness logs and issued big fines to businesses that underreported such incidents.

But by the 1990s, he said, industry groups and pro-business lawmakers were accusing OSHA of focusing on what they perceived as frivolous paperwork violations. Today, he said, the agency is conducting fewer inspections and issuing fewer fines, leaving businesses to police themselves.

The government, he said, has no clear picture of the hazards that lurk inside some of America's most dangerous manufacturers.

Whitmore's claims jibe with a 2006 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine which looked at injury and illness data from a variety of sources for workers in Michigan. (OSHA only uses business reporting.) The study concluded that the current national surveillance system (which is based on OSHA data) is missing about two-thirds of workplace injuries and illnesses. That's some serious underreporting.