Construction dealing with influx of fatal injuries in North Carolina

• Nearly 60 construction workers died in North Carolina workplaces between Jan. 2021 and Sep. 2023 in North Carolina, according to Occupational Fatality Inspection Review data from the NC Department of Labor.
• John McCabe, a lawyer who works with workers’ compensation cases, has seen multiple cases where leadership fails to properly assess safety at a site. Instead, they often wait until someone is injured or killed before calling in an engineer
• The construction industry has had the highest number of deaths in the state almost every year for the past 14 years. Since 2009, more than 250 construction workers have died in workplaces across North Carolina according to NCDOL data.
• Nationally, construction and extraction workers had the second-most fatalities in 2022, after transportation and material movers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Construction and extraction worker fatalities increased by 11% from 2021 to 2022.
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Amtrak employee injured after derailment

• An Amtrak worker was seriously injured and two other people suffered minor injuries when a passenger train derailed after it hit a tanker truck carrying milk in northeastern Colorado.
• The train worker, a 42-year-old man from Utah, suffered injuries in the crash that might be life-threatening.
• A passenger might be among the other two people who were hurt in the crash, which occurred around 10 p.m. near Keenesburg, a town of about 1,300 people roughly 35 miles northeast of Denver.
• An Amtrak spokesman couldn’t discuss the injured worker’s condition due to privacy reasons.
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Report: Thousands of deaths among frontline workers could have been prevented

• An analysis published by The BMJ, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, examined the risks faced by frontline workers in the United States during the pandemic and suggested reforms that could protect population health and save lives.
• Lead author Professor David Michaels at George Washington University and his colleagues note that from the onset laws and regulations in the United States inadequately protected frontline workers.
• The gaps allowed a rapid spread of disease in U.S. workplaces like meat packing plants. At the same time, these essential workers were rarely seen.
• “The risk of exposure was exacerbated by race- and labor-related economic inequality, resulting in disproportionally more of the nation’s Black and Hispanic workers being killed or sickened by the virus,” said Michaels, who served as the administrator for the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 2009 to 2017.
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OSHA provides help with electronically submitting workplace injury and illness data

• OSHA is hosting a webinar on electronically submitting workplace injury and illness data using the Injury Tracking Application on Feb. 7 from 1-2 p.m. ET, registration is free.
• Establishments that meet certain size and industry criteria are required to electronically submit injury and illness data from their OSHA Form 300A, 300, and 301 (or equivalent forms) annually to OSHA no later than March 2.
• OSHA collects this work-related injury and illness data through the ITA, which also includes answers to frequently asked questions. Also, see the Protecting Personally Identifiable Information fact sheet, which explains how establishments can avoid submitting PII through the ITA.
• To determine whether you are required to submit this data, visit the ITA Coverage Application. This application only applies to establishments located in states under Federal OSHA jurisdiction. If your establishment is located in a State Plan State, please contact their OSH plan for guidance.
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