The fee of staff killed from accidents is on the rise as Massachusetts emerges from the pandemic and returns to enterprise as traditional.
A brand new report from the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health exhibits that 62 staff within the Bay State misplaced their lives on the job in 2021 — a 38% bounce from 45 office fatalities in 2020 through the peak of the pandemic.
Fatal overdoses and suicides on the job claimed 38 lives final 12 months, a “frightening rise” of 52% from the earlier 12 months, MassCOSH mentioned in its report.
During a Thursday ceremony in entrance of the State House, MassCOSH reps, labor advocates and members of the family of those that misplaced a liked one at work pushed for actions to make work safer.
“One work-related death is too many,” mentioned Steven Tolman, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “Today, and daily, we stand united with the households whose family members have suffered a tragic loss.
“We come together in a call for action to protect workers and renew the fight for stronger and safer worker protections,” he mentioned, later including, “Today, we mourn all those who have suffered a tragic loss, but we will never stop fighting for the living.”
As in earlier years, deadly accidents had been concentrated within the building trade — with 15 building deaths accounting for about one-quarter of the 62 office fatalities.
The report states that occupational publicity to COVID-19 has made many 1000’s of staff in Massachusetts sick and certain resulted in lots of, if not 1000’s, of deaths. But as a result of the state didn’t observe the industries and occupations of those that examined constructive for COVID, it’s not possible to call or depend the employees who died from work-related COVID.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”