WORKERS AT RISK
Bay State fatalities hit 10-year high
Seventy workers lost their lives in the Bay State last year — a rate that hit a 10-year high — and 13 others have already died in 2017, often in situations that were completely preventable, according to a shocking new report.
Of the 70 workers who died in 2016, 62 died from fatal injuries and the eight others were firefighters who died from occupational illnesses, according to the Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health.
That means two workers died for every 100,000 employees in Massachusetts — the highest rate in the last decade and double the rate at which workers died only five years ago, when 32 workplace fatalities were reported, according to “Dying for Work: Loss of Life and Limb in Massachusetts Workplaces.”
“What I hope the public takes away from this report is that worker health and safety issues are not part of history; they are very much a part of the present,” Mass-COSH Executive Director Jodi Sugerman-Brozan said in a statement. “When employer precautions are not taken to protect workers, people die.”
People like 52-year-old Norval Bryant, who was working without a safety harness or netting on the roof of a Lynn home on Jan. 7, 2016, when he fell 17 feet, a fall that split his head open and caused one of his ribs to puncture his heart, his brother, Bob Bryant, said.
“Somebody’s life is at risk when things aren’t done the right way,” Bob Bryant said. “Too many people die to save someone a dollar.”
Like Norval Bryant, 28-year-old Jason Sanderson didn’t have worker’s compensation on Nov. 19, 2016, when the circular saw he was using to cut a water main pipe in front of the Duxbury home his employer was building hit him in the neck, his wife, Jennifer Sanderson, said.
Since then, she and their three children, ages 2 to 10, have gotten by largely on donations to a GoFundMe page her family and friends started for them, she said.
Yesterday, she and Bob Bryant joined other victims’ families to mark Workers’ Memorial Day on the State House steps, where Attorney General Maura Healey said her office has worked with state Sen. Jennifer L. Flanagan to file a bill that would update the state’s corporate manslaughter law.
“For years, some corporations responsible for tragedies in Massachusetts have gotten away with a slap on the wrist,” Healey said. “Our bill will put a stop to that and send a strong message to the entire business community: If you can’t protect your workers, you can’t do business in Massachusetts.”