A new federal job safety study finds North and South Carolina among the country’s safest states in which to work. But some experts doubt whether the rates accurately reflect which states are safer.
North Carolina’s rate of injuries or illnesses at private companies dropped to a historic low in 2009 of 3.1 cases per 100 full-time workers, compared with 3.4 cases in 2008, the state’s Labor Department said. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the injury rate in South Carolina was 3.2 cases per 100 workers last year, compared to 3.1 in 2008.
Injury rates in both states were near the country’s lowest, along with Texas, Louisiana, Virginia and New York. The states with favorable rates include both those like Texas and Louisiana that are regulated by the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration and those that run their own workplace safety programs, like North and South Carolina.
But Peter Dooley, a Michigan safety consultant who is on OSHA’s national advisory committee, said the numbers don’t tell the whole story because employers avoid reporting injuries. “It’s technically illegal, but it does happen in ways that companies basically get away with it,” Dooley said. “Workers are increasingly worried about having the jobs they have and that can really effect the bottom-line numbers.”
The declining rates also are a puzzle to Gary Tencer, assistant director of occupational safety at Duke University in Durham, at a time of recession. “When you think about the number of workers doing more work than they did before — companies are trying to do more with less, or doing the same with less — that increases exposure,” he said.
Last month, a U.S. Labor Department audit blasted both Carolinas for assessing weak fines. The average penalty was about $281 in South Carolina and $512 in North Carolina, while the federal OSHA’s is $970.
North Carolina Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry defends her way. “The federal emphasis is kind of a one-size-fits all,” Berry said. State-run OSHA programs are “better targeted to the specifics of the individual states.”
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