A new worldwide job safety report has been published by non-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and it’s a scary one for the United States. According to their research findings, within the past year alone, the safety of the American Worker has been drastically lowered and most people don’t realize it.
“America is on a trajectory toward Third World industrial safety,” warns PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “Just as our bridges, highways and other public infrastructure require reinvestment so do our industrial plants if we are to avoid the damage and dysfunction driven by a crumbling core.”
Major United States Industries: Who Are These Endangered Industrial Workers?
Not every worker is on the job doing industrial work. Manicurists, graphic designers, actors, politicians, and police officers are just a few examples of work that isn’t included in this shocking new research warning. However, for Indiana and Illinois, this warning of increasing danger and risk to workers on the job doing industrial work applies to a great number of employees.
Shipyard Workers: Increased Risk of Injury on the Job
According to the Dow Jones, the following are the major American industries in the United States:
- Construction & Materials
- Building Materials & Fixtures
- Heavy Construction
- Industrial Goods & Services
- Aerospace & Defense
- Aerospace
- Defense
- General Industrials
- Containers & Packaging
- Diversified Industrials
- Electronic & Electrical Equipment
- Electrical Components & Equipment
- Electronic Equipment
- Industrial Engineering
- Commercial Vehicles & Trucks
- Industrial Machinery
- Industrial Transportation
- Delivery Services
- Marine Transportation
- Railroads
- Transportation Services
- Trucking
- Support Services
- Business Support Services
- Business Training & Employment Agencies
- Financial Administration
- Industrial Suppliers
- Waste & Disposal Services
Industrial Workers Are In Increasing Danger of Serious Injury or Death While Working on the Job
What PEER has done is to collect published reports summarizing research findings for various nations and various aspects of the industrial workplace. The PEER study then compares and summarizes these research findings.
Shockingly, it appears that the United States industrial workplace is falling short of keeping its workers safe, and that things are getting worse. For instance, from the American Journal of Industrial Medicine entitled, “Occupational Fatality Risks in the United States and the United Kingdom,” the following facts:
1. American workers are 3 times more likely to die than British workers doing the same job
2. U.S. workers died 10 times more often from exposure to chemicals than those doing the same job in the United Kingdom
3. American workers died 5 times more often from fire than British workers doing the same work
4. U.S. workers died 4 times more often than workers on the same job in the United Kingdom.
What is going on here?
According to the PEER study, the failure involves not only maintaining industrial conditions but to allow them to fall behind. PEER points to a study by Swiss Re (a big insurance concern) that reveals the insurance industry has experienced 3 times the losses in the refining, petrochemical processing and gas processing industry from American losses than any other sector on the globe.
New safeguards are not being considered and implemented in the American industrial sectors. Plants are getting more dangerous over time because, as Ruch explains, “ … plant operators do not have a sufficient economic incentive to invest because the real costs are borne by sacrificial workers and sickened communities.”
What Should Industrial Workers Do?
No one should be more aware of declining safety in their workplace than the workers who are on the job there, day after day. Taking personal precautions for you and your work buddies is important.
Filing complaints with management over shoddy safety situations is also important — that complaint might save your life or that of your co-worker. Sadly, it isn’t looking like those complaints are resulting in changes in job conditions, unfortunately.
Which means that the PEER Study is warning American industrial workers will be seriously injured or killed because of dangerous work conditions. Keep safe, and if you are injured then be ready to pursue justice with a workers’ compensation claim or personal injury lawsuit.
