Philadelphia Injury Lawyer discusses Construction Accidents Prevention and OSHA
“Every day in America, 13 people go to work and never come home. Every year in America, nearly 4 million people suffer a workplace injury from which some may never recover.” These are preventable tragedies.
The creation of OSHA was a historic cooperative national reform. Forty years of common-sense standards and strong enforcement, training, outreach and compliance assistance have saved thousands of lives and prevented countless injuries. In 2011, 4,609 workers were killed on the job, almost 90 a week or nearly 13 deaths every day. In 1970, 38 workers were killed on the job every day in America; now it’s 13 a day.
Construction Accidents “Fatal Four” injuries are falls(35%), electrocution (9%), struck by object (10%), and caught in-between (3%). Out of 4,0114 worker fatalities in private industry in calendar year 2011, 721 or 17.5% were in construction. These “Fatal Four” were responsible for nearly three out of five (57%). Eliminating the Fatal Four would save 410 workers’ lives in America every year.
In 2011, the top ten most frequently cited OSHA standards violated were:
- Scaffolding, general requirements, construction
- Fall protection, construction
- Hazard communication standard, general industry
- Respiratory protection, general industry
- Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry
- Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment, general industry
- Powered industrial trucks, general industry
- Ladders, construction
- Electrical systems design, general requirements, general industry
- Machine guarding (machines, general requirements, general industry)
OSHA is making a difference in reducing construction accidents and injury. Since 1970, workplace fatalities have been reduced by more than 65 percent and occupational injury and illness rates have declined by 67 percent. At the same time, U.S. employment has almost doubled.