OSHA removes list of worker fatalities from homepage
BY LYDIA WHEELER - 08/25/17 06:29 PM EDT
The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has removed data on worker fatalities from the homepage of its website.
The agency previously included a link on the front page of its website to a list of workers who had been killed on the job. The list included the worker’s name, date they died and cause of death.
As of Friday, the box was replaced with links to information on how OSHA is working with employers to create safer workplaces. The list of worker fatalities is now under a separate section deeper into the site. The most recent death listed was on June 2.
The change was first reported by Politico.
Debbie Berkowitz, a senior fellow at the National Employment Law Project who served as a senior official at OSHA under former President Obama, told The Hill the missing data is just the latest action by the Trump administration that fails to protect workers.
“I just think this is one more action by the administration to make it clear that they are not really interested in protecting workers. They are more interested in hiding the data and hiding fatalities,” she said.
“It allows the secretary of Labor to say things are going well. There’s nothing to contradict this.”
Berkowitz argued it was important to have the information on the front page of OSHA’s website.
“We thought it was important information to pay tribute to workers who were killed on the job, to say ‘We as an agency are here to say you did not die in vain, and we’re here to prevent the next one,’ ” she said.
Labor Department spokeswoman Mandy Kraft reportedly told Politico the change was made to make the information more accurate because the “previous listings included fatal incidents that were outside federal OSHA jurisdiction, not work-related, or the employer was not cited for a violation related to the incident.”
Kraft reportedly said OSHA is keeping the previous list of workers on its site and will continue to review the data.
http://thehill.com/regulation/labor/348047-osha-removes-list-of-worker-fatalities-from-homepage
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