Depressing news from Jim Morris of the Center for Public Integrity, workplace deaths rose 3% in 2010:
The Department of Labor reported Wednesday that 4,690 U.S. workers suffered fatal injuries in 2010, a 3 percent increase from 2009.
The higher number in part reflects a string of high-profile disasters in 2010: An explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia that killed 29; BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11; and a blast at the Tesoro Corp.’s oil refinery in Washington State that killed seven.
Even discounting the 47 deaths from those three events, the toll rose in 2010. In 2009, 4,551 workers died, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There has been little progress in reducing the number of work fatalities over the past several years, according to an expert from the AFL-CIO.
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