150 Workers Die Every Day
By AFL-CIO
Today the AFL-CIO released our 27th annual Death on the Job report, highlighting a startling rise in workplace deaths in 2016. The report comes as the Trump administration continues to enact an aggressive deregulatory agenda, gutting safety rules and proposing deep cuts to worker safety and health training.
On a press call announcing the report, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters, “We’re facing a national crisis. And it’s time that folks in this town start acting like it.”
He pointed to some of the report’s most alarming findings:
- 150 workers died each day from preventable, hazardous workplace conditions. Overall, the national job fatality rate increased to 3.6 per 100,000 workers from 3.4 in 2015.
- 5,190 American workers died from on-the-job injuries in 2016, an increase from 4,836 deaths the previous year. Another estimated 50,000 to 60,000 died from occupational diseases.
- Workplace violence is now the second-leading cause of workplace death, accounting for 866 workplace deaths, including 500 homicides.
- Latino and immigrant workers continue to account for a disproportionate number of deaths on the job.
- Workers in Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota suffered from the highest fatality rates.
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