North Carolina Underreports Workplace Deaths: Study

A study by workplace safety advocates shows that more workers die on the job in North Carolina than the state reports.

The Charlotte Observer reported that the state Labor Department recorded 35 workers killed on the job in 2012. The report by the National Council on Occupational Safety gives the number at 148, as reported by the Bureau of Labor of Statistics.

The difference is mainly because the state doesn’t count deaths because of motor vehicle accidents and workplace violence or the deaths of people who are self-employed. Labor Department officials say the state report includes only those deaths that the law allows the agency to investigate.

The NCOSH report, titled “North Carolina Workers Dying for a Job,” also concludes that penalties are too low to encourage employers to keep working conditions safe and that “even repeat offenders get off easy.”

“Clearly the absolute number of deaths has gone down,” said NCOSH Executive Director Tom O’Connor, who wrote the report. “But there are still way too many people dying in easily preventable deaths.”

N.C. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry has pointed to the state’s declining workplace injury, illness and death rates as evidence that her approach to workplace safety is working.

“This has been achieved through increased education and training, consultation, and partnerships and alliances with employers and employees in the private and public sectors,” Berry said in a statement.

The U.S. Labor Department audited North Carolina in 2010, finding that the state downplayed serious safety problems, issued weak fines to violators and failed to properly handle whistleblower complaints.