"Nationally, one Hispanic person dies on the job every day."
This is just down-right stupid. AND avoidable! As this article confirms, Latino workers in construction, transportation and manufacturing industries are dying at rates significantly higher than other demographic groups. These deaths are preventable! All agree, Safety Education/Training is the solution.
This is a big part of why we got into this business... TV Trainer can help save lives, today!!
If you're a business in one of these industries, call us. 952.221.1800
Craig Evans for TV Trainer.
_________________________
Training counters rise in work-site deaths
By Jake Rollow / El Paso Times
8/25/2006
Gabriel Perez of Beltran Electric worked Aug. 15 at the new Eastwood Middle School construction site. Ysleta school district officials say work crews have weekly safety meetings to help prevent accidents. El Paso had eight work-related deaths in 2005. (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times).
While local and state officials listed various reasons for the more than 12 percent rise in occupational deaths statewide last year, many agreed that safety education is key to reversing the trend.
In 2005, 495 people died while on the job in Texas, an increase of 12.5 percent over 2004, when 440 on-the-job deaths were recorded by the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. The statistics are released annually by the Texas Department of Insurance's Division of Workers Compensation.
In 2005, eight occupational deaths were reported in El Paso County, according to the division's spokesman, John Greeley.
In 2004 there were fewer than six such deaths in El Paso County. In 2003 there were seven.
Greeley said he could not reveal the exact 2004 number because the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics does not allow the count to be released when there are relatively few occupational deaths. The bureau does this because it promises the employers of workers who die that it will not reveal information by which anyone could identify where a death occurred, Greeley said.
For the same reason, Greeley said, he could not report the types of occupational deaths in El Paso last year.
Statewide in 2005, deaths were reported in construction (134), transportation (122) and manufacturing (31), the perennial "top three" industries for occupational deaths, according to Mike Montgomery, team leader for the occupational fatality census.
Sixty-nine people were killed in natural resource and mining work in Texas, boosted by an explosion at a British Petroleum oil refinery that claimed the lives of 15 employees in Texas City in March.
Montgomery said he didn't know what caused the spike in Texas' workplace deaths last year, as he's still analyzing the numbers. Other local and state officials said that likely factors were the oil refinery explosion, increased trucks and traffic on Texas roads, increased construction projects statewide and a lack of safety instruction.
Forty percent, or 200, of the people who died in Texas last year were Hispanic, the census found. The percentage is higher than the percentage of state residents who are Hispanic, 34.6 percent, according to the U.S. Census 2004 population estimate. Elias Casillas, safety specialist with T&T Staff Management, said this trend is not surprising. Hispanics "are usually the ones working in construction and at high elevations," he said. Nationally, one Hispanic person dies on the job every day, he added.
"That's where the Hispanic initiative comes in," Casillas said, referring to a program T&T carries out in coordination with OSHA. Through the initiative, T&T provides safety training to local workers in their native language. The advertisement is more often Spanish than English in the El Paso area.
"Providing training in the native language of those workers really helps," Casillas said.
OSHA also collaborated with El Paso Associated General Contractors, JDW Insurance and the El Paso Del Norte branch of the American Society of Safety Engineers in a two-month billboard campaign during the fall of 2005. It included billboards in Spanish.
Casillas cited the business's recent drop in workers' compensation claims as a sign of success. T&T, which processed payroll and workers' compensation for 13,000 employees of its client companies in El Paso, recorded 1,046 claims in 2005. In 2004, 1,916 claims were filed with the company. That's T&T's incentive to provide the extensive safety training to its client companies' employees, Casillas said. "To keep the workers' compensation down; the less injuries, the less insurance the company (T&T) has to pay," he said.
T&T is not the only local company stressing safety education.
"Ysleta (Independent School District) has a very assertive safety plan," said Jim Booher, executive director of facilities and construction. He said his crews participate every week in a safety meeting, in which they cover such topics as work-site cleanliness, personal protection equipment, hazardous chemicals and drug abuse. And the attention to safety is paying off, Booher said. At Eastwood Middle School, which is being entirely rebuilt, the gap between safety "incidents" has been 62,000 man-hours. He did not know the average number of man-hours between such incidents in the region. At Eastwood Middle, no students are around the work site, but Ysleta bond spokesman Daniel Escobar said that's not always the case, and where students are around, safety becomes even more important. "There are some projects taking place while classes are in session," Escobar said.
Numbers of Texas workers killed on the job by year for the past decade:
2005: 495 people died while working.
2004: 440.
2003: 491.
2002: 417.
2001: 536.
2000: 572.
1999: 468.
1998: 523.
1997: 459.
1996: 514.
This is a big part of why we got into this business... TV Trainer can help save lives, today!!
If you're a business in one of these industries, call us. 952.221.1800
Craig Evans for TV Trainer.
_________________________
Training counters rise in work-site deaths
By Jake Rollow / El Paso Times
8/25/2006
Gabriel Perez of Beltran Electric worked Aug. 15 at the new Eastwood Middle School construction site. Ysleta school district officials say work crews have weekly safety meetings to help prevent accidents. El Paso had eight work-related deaths in 2005. (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times).
While local and state officials listed various reasons for the more than 12 percent rise in occupational deaths statewide last year, many agreed that safety education is key to reversing the trend.
In 2005, 495 people died while on the job in Texas, an increase of 12.5 percent over 2004, when 440 on-the-job deaths were recorded by the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. The statistics are released annually by the Texas Department of Insurance's Division of Workers Compensation.
In 2005, eight occupational deaths were reported in El Paso County, according to the division's spokesman, John Greeley.
In 2004 there were fewer than six such deaths in El Paso County. In 2003 there were seven.
Greeley said he could not reveal the exact 2004 number because the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics does not allow the count to be released when there are relatively few occupational deaths. The bureau does this because it promises the employers of workers who die that it will not reveal information by which anyone could identify where a death occurred, Greeley said.
For the same reason, Greeley said, he could not report the types of occupational deaths in El Paso last year.
Statewide in 2005, deaths were reported in construction (134), transportation (122) and manufacturing (31), the perennial "top three" industries for occupational deaths, according to Mike Montgomery, team leader for the occupational fatality census.
Sixty-nine people were killed in natural resource and mining work in Texas, boosted by an explosion at a British Petroleum oil refinery that claimed the lives of 15 employees in Texas City in March.
Montgomery said he didn't know what caused the spike in Texas' workplace deaths last year, as he's still analyzing the numbers. Other local and state officials said that likely factors were the oil refinery explosion, increased trucks and traffic on Texas roads, increased construction projects statewide and a lack of safety instruction.
Forty percent, or 200, of the people who died in Texas last year were Hispanic, the census found. The percentage is higher than the percentage of state residents who are Hispanic, 34.6 percent, according to the U.S. Census 2004 population estimate. Elias Casillas, safety specialist with T&T Staff Management, said this trend is not surprising. Hispanics "are usually the ones working in construction and at high elevations," he said. Nationally, one Hispanic person dies on the job every day, he added.
"That's where the Hispanic initiative comes in," Casillas said, referring to a program T&T carries out in coordination with OSHA. Through the initiative, T&T provides safety training to local workers in their native language. The advertisement is more often Spanish than English in the El Paso area.
"Providing training in the native language of those workers really helps," Casillas said.
OSHA also collaborated with El Paso Associated General Contractors, JDW Insurance and the El Paso Del Norte branch of the American Society of Safety Engineers in a two-month billboard campaign during the fall of 2005. It included billboards in Spanish.
Casillas cited the business's recent drop in workers' compensation claims as a sign of success. T&T, which processed payroll and workers' compensation for 13,000 employees of its client companies in El Paso, recorded 1,046 claims in 2005. In 2004, 1,916 claims were filed with the company. That's T&T's incentive to provide the extensive safety training to its client companies' employees, Casillas said. "To keep the workers' compensation down; the less injuries, the less insurance the company (T&T) has to pay," he said.
T&T is not the only local company stressing safety education.
"Ysleta (Independent School District) has a very assertive safety plan," said Jim Booher, executive director of facilities and construction. He said his crews participate every week in a safety meeting, in which they cover such topics as work-site cleanliness, personal protection equipment, hazardous chemicals and drug abuse. And the attention to safety is paying off, Booher said. At Eastwood Middle School, which is being entirely rebuilt, the gap between safety "incidents" has been 62,000 man-hours. He did not know the average number of man-hours between such incidents in the region. At Eastwood Middle, no students are around the work site, but Ysleta bond spokesman Daniel Escobar said that's not always the case, and where students are around, safety becomes even more important. "There are some projects taking place while classes are in session," Escobar said.
Numbers of Texas workers killed on the job by year for the past decade:
2005: 495 people died while working.
2004: 440.
2003: 491.
2002: 417.
2001: 536.
2000: 572.
1999: 468.
1998: 523.
1997: 459.
1996: 514.
Jake Rollow may be reached at jrollow@elpasotimes.com
posted by Craig Evans at 8:16 AM
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