OSHA Covers Up Workplace Fatalities

August 25, 2017

Two weeks ago, OSHA gained new political leadership in Deputy Assistant Secretary Loren Sweatt. And now we’re seeing the first impact of the Trump-Acosta-Sweatt regime at OSHA: A brazen attempt to hide from the American public the extent of workplace fatalities in this country. What we now know is that the Chamber of Commerce is fully in charge at OSHA.

Today OSHA removed from its website a running list of workers killed on the job. That list, which disappeared from OSHA’s homepage today, had been prefaced with the statement: “More than 4500 workers lose their lives on the job every year. Below are the names of just a few who have died in recent months. OSHA’s mission is to prevent workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths.” This listing of names was added to the OSHA webpage in 2010 in order to ensure that people knew of the extent of workplace fatalities in the US. Without information like this, fatality statistics are just raw, sterile numbers. The purpose of adding names and circumstances was to impress people with the tragedy that workers and their families face every day.

Instead of the list of workers killed, a different list now appears on OSHA’s Data webpage, listing only those fatalities that have received citations and removing the names of those killed.

Replacing the list of fatalities on the Home Page is a new feature: “OSHA Working With Employers,” which highlights Training, Compliance Assistance and Cooperative and Recognition Programs. And instead of a running list of workers killed on the job, we now have a running list of “a few examples of our cooperative programs that work with and recognize employers who create safe workplaces.” (This list will soon get pretty stale. There are a lot more workers killed on the job every month than new VPP, SHARP or Alliance participants in an entire year.)