Beware of New Data on Workplace Injury

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/10/18/beware-of-new-data-on-workplace-injury/

by Mike Hall, Oct 18, 2007

Did incidents of workplace illness and injury decline last year? On the surface, the data in yesterday’s report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) sure seems that way. The BLS figures show a slight drop-off in private-sector workplace injuries and illnesses in 2006, compared with 2005, and indicate the rate of injuries and illnesses was the lowest since 1972.



Let’s take a closer look.

BLS bases its figures on data recorded on the Log of Injuries and Illnesses required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). And as workplace safety advocates and academics long have pointed out, these figures have a major flaw—they are compiled from one source—employers.

Some studies, including a 2006 report in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, find that the government’s tallies of injuries and illnesses on the job could be underreported by as much as 69 percent.

As the AFL-CIO’s 2007 report Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect notes:

Underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses is not a new phenomenon. Numerous government-driven and independent studies have documented the problem of underreporting and made recommendations to correct it, yet little mention ever is made of underreporting when the BLS statistics are released. And officials at OSHA have largely ignored the issue of underreporting, continuing to rely on employer reports of workplace injuries as evidence that policies are working, despite evidence that this information is unreliable.

That report, released in April before the 2006 statistics were available, used figures from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine’s study “How Much of Work-Related Injury and Illness is Missed by the Current National Surveillance System?” to estimate the difference between the BLS injury and illness stats for 2005 and what many safety experts consider the more accurate number.

In 2005, BLS reported there were 4.2 million nonfatal injuries and illnesses in private-sector workplaces, but one underreporting is factored in, the figure is closer to 12.6 million incidents. The number of cases per 100 workers, according to BLS, was 4.6, but the more accurate figure is 13.8 injuries and illnesses per 100 workers.

FULL story at link.