80 people in Massachusetts died of workplace injury in 2007

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/04/29/ap4947045.html

By GLEN JOHNSON 04.29.08, 12:14 PM ET

BOSTON -

Eighty people died in Massachusetts last year from workplace-related injuries, nearly a quarter of them in falls, according to statistics released Monday by the AFL-CIO and a coalition of labor groups.

The groups compiled the data to commemorate the 21st annual Workers' Memorial Day on Tuesday. They want more staffing at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as stiffer penalties for employers allowing unsafe workplaces.

"It's not just the number, which is unacceptable. It's also what's behind the numbers - that so many of these men and women could have been with us today had their employer not given safety short shrift," said report co-author Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will hold a hearing on Tuesday examining what he called OSHA's weak penalty system in workplace fatality cases.

"The best way to honor workers who have been killed on the job is to modernize and strengthen our worker safety laws," he said.

The Massachusetts tally included seven firefighters deemed to have died from work-related cancer and heart disease, a group included in previous reports. It also included two firefighters who died fighting a fire in Boston last August. News reports have said autopsy reports on those two firefighters showed one had alcohol and the other traces of cocaine in their blood.

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1. How some illegals are doing it and probably shouldn't.