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Thursday, June 19, 2008

For Workplace Injuries, Underreporting is under Fire

Today's Wall Street Journal reports on a major problem in the area of workplace safety. Unlike recent stories, this one is not about crane safety, combustible dust, or popcorn workers lung. Instead, the Journal profiles an issue which should be far easier to handle but has vexed the Department of Labor nonetheless: accurate data on workplace injuries.

Journal reporter Kris Maher points out why reliable injury statistics are vital to occupational safety: "Having accurate data is considered critical in making policy decisions about where safety needs to be improved and whether new regulations and rules need to be issued."

Both employers and the Labor Department are to blame. A Department official "acknowledged that workers and companies both have incentives not to report injuries, noting that contracts are sometimes awarded to companies with low injury rates," according to the article.

To make matters worse, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration isn't meeting its responsibility to collect data, and rule changes have altered the definition of what counts as an injury:

At present, the nation's safety record consists of a survey of 250,000 establishments. Recent figures show a decrease in injuries, which indicates that workplaces are getting safer.

However, research suggests the federal figures capture less than half of actual injuries. One study published in June in the Annals of Epidemiology compared employer data reported to OSHA against figures from state workers' compensation systems in six states. It found that the OSHA figures failed to count from 24% to 49% of all workplace injuries.

Another study last year by University of Illinois researchers attributed 83% of the decline in workplace injuries from 1992 to 2003 to changes in OSHA record-keeping rules. Researchers said OSHA no longer requires an injury to be recorded if the worker was able to come back to work the day after the injury. They also said OSHA stopped collecting data at workplace sites, and relied on employers to send injury information.

Today, the House Education and Labor Committee will take a critical look at the problem. You can watch the hearing, scheduled to begin at 10:30, by clicking here.