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USW Welcomes GAO Report on Employer Policies, Programs and Practices that Discourage Workplace Injur
May 10, 2012
USW Welcomes GAO Report on Employer Policies, Programs and Practices that Discourage Workplace Injury Reporting
http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0549
PITTSBURGH –The United Steelworkers (USW) today welcomed the release of a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that underscores the pervasive nature of employer policies, programs and practices that discourage workers from reporting job injuries and illnesses and outlines actions that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) should take to address these practices.
The report, “Workplace Safety and Health: Better OSHA Guidance Needed on Safety Incentive Programs,” presents the results of a GAO survey of U.S. manufacturing companies that found that 75% of firms had safety incentive programs or other workplace safety policies that can affect workers’ reporting of injuries and illnesses.
“The USW has long warned and campaigned against workplace programs and policies that discourage workers from reporting job injuries,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “Such programs make employers’ injury rates look good while job hazards go unidentified and uncorrected. We’ve seen far too many tragedies and catastrophes in facilities where employers are playing these numbers games.”
The report, released today, builds on a 2009 GAO report on the accuracy of workplace injury and illness data that revealed that more than two-thirds of injured workers fear employer discipline or the loss of their jobs if they reported their injuries. Over half of occupational health practitioners surveyed said that employers pressured them to downplay injuries so that they would not be OSHA recordable, and one-third of occupational health practitioners said that employers pressure them to provide insufficient treatment to workers so that injuries would not meet the threshold for a “recordable injury.”
FULL story at link.
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