US study finds safety as most important workplace issue

A recent study from the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) at the University of Chicago found that 85% of workers rank workplace safety first in importance among labour standards, even ahead of family and maternity leave, minimum wage, paid sick days, overtime pay and the right to join a union. The study was carried out for the Public Welfare Foundation, which supports efforts to improve workers’ rights.

The study, ‘Public Attitudes Towards and Experiences with Workplace Safety’, draws on dozens of surveys and polls conducted by NORC. The analysis sought to gain a picture of Americans’ experiences with workplace safety issues.

Despite widespread public concern about workplace safety, the study also found that the media and the public tend to pay closest attention to safety issues when disastrous workplace accidents occur. Even during those tragedies, the fate of workers is often overlooked, such as during the recent oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Workplace safety is too often ignored or accidents taken for granted,” said Tom W Smith, Director of NORC’s General Social Survey (GSS). “It is striking that coverage in the media and public opinion polls has virtually ignored the 11 workers killed by the blowout and destruction of the drilling platform.”

Instead, Smith pointed out the media coverage and the polls focused on the environmental impact of the disaster, overlooking the worker safety aspects. But he noted that: “If optimal safety had been maintained, not only would the lives of the 11 workers have been saved, but the whole environmental disaster would have been averted.”

Robert Shull, Program Officer for Workers’ Rights at the Public Welfare Foundation, added: “Workplace safety should be a constant concern. Given the importance that workers themselves place on this issue, we should not have to mourn the loss of people on the job before government and employers take more effective measures to ensure that employees can go home safely after work.”

On 19 August, the US Department of Labor reported in a preliminary count that the number of workers who died on the job in 2009 fell 17% from the previous year, as workers clocked in for fewer hours because of the recession. While Labor Secretary Hilda L Solis called the results “encouraging”, she also noted that “no job is a good job unless it is also safe”.

Despite a decrease in workplace fatalities, the study found reports of incidents of injury at work to be high. Although most workers say they are satisfied with safety conditions at work, they also report job-related stress as a contributing factor to injury. The most recent NORC study on job-related stress, conducted in 2006, reported that 13% of workers find their jobs always stressful, while 21% find their jobs often stressful.

“Exhaustion, dangerous working conditions and other negative experiences at work are reported by many workers,” Smith said. “Such conditions mean that workplace accidents are far from rare.”

The study found that about 12% of workers reported an on-the-job injury during the past year and 37% said they have required medical treatment at one time for a workplace injury.

“Unsafe working conditions end up costing the public dearly,” added Shull. “But no matter what the cost to the general public, the workers and their families pay the highest price.”