Texas has had a rash of embarrassing number one rankings such as most people without health insurance and most teen pregnancies. Now it looks like we've got another one to add to our list of shame. Texas leads the nation in workplace deaths.
In 2008, Texas had 457 fatal occupational injuries. That was 71 less deaths than in 2007, when the state logged 528 on-the-job deaths. But it was still good enough to lead the nations in this grisly statistic. California, with about a 50% larger population than Texas, finished in second place with 404 deaths.
While the number of deaths fell in Texas, it did the same nationwide. It would be nice if this was due to safer workplaces, but sadly, that is not true. It is far more likely the drop in deaths is due to the recession causing a large drop in the number of workers (7.2 fewer jobs nationwide).
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics economist Cheryl Abbot said, "...we're attributing part of the decline to the slowdown in the economy. We don't have any statistical measures to say that this percentage of the decline was due to fewer employees in this state...but it's bound to have an effect."
The occupational groups with the most deaths were protection services, construction and extraction workers (such as oil and gas drilling). Twelve of the job-related deaths were to peace officers. About 94% of those killed were men, but 26 women also lost their lives.
Maybe it's time to strengthen OSHA (which was gutted during the Bush administration's 8-year worship of corporate profits).
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