Commercial Insurance
Life or Death
The number of workplace fatalities is increasing, even in low-risk service sector jobs. Who or what is responsible?

Related links:
• Can employers predict workplace violence?   • 1998 Safety Snapshot
• 1998 Fatal Accidents

By Marjolijn Bijlefeld
For several days, workers had complained of the stench of gas in one section of New River Castings, an auto parts plant in Radford. Suddenly, during the second shift on Sunday night, the plant was ripped open by an explosion so powerful that it could be heard for 15 miles. Three employees were killed, including two women who were crushed under tons of twisted metal. Six others were injured.

The March 5 blast is still under investigation, but it underlines a growing trend in Virginia that has commercial insurers and business leaders concerned: the rising number of fatal workplace accidents. According to the most recent state figures available, 176 workers died on the job in 1998, not including five coal miners not covered in the assessment. That was 10 more fatalities than the previous year, not including coal mine deaths.

Even so, state officials maintain that if measured over several years, the fatality rate, along with the injury rate, is actually going down because of the surge in the state’s work force. By that assessment, the fatality rate per 100,000 workers has dropped from 1.75 in 1996 to 1.59 in 1998 and is expected to be lower in 1999. One phenomenon, however, has state officials scratching their heads: The largest increase in the work force has been in the 1.1 million-person service sector. Usually such jobs involve relatively little risk. Yet the service sector had the largest increase in fatalities overall — 27 percent of the total for 1998 — and officials can’t explain why.

Not only are individual fatalities on the rise, there’s growing concern about workplace violence, which has garnered national headlines. In Virginia, 23 percent of the fatalities resulted from workplace violence, such as assaults during armed robberies or when enraged, disgruntled workers attack their colleagues (see article, Page 20).

So who or what is to blame for the fatalities? There’s no easy answer. Employees may show errors in judgment and take unnecessary risks. But the ultimate responsibility lands in the lap of management. Companies that make safety part of their corporate culture typically end up being among the safest. “With the companies that are good, it starts at the top and goes all the way through,” says Nancy L. Jakubec, director of the state labor department’s cooperative programs. “It’s not something that the employees can do and management can’t. It has to be from top management to first line supervisors to employees.”

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There are obvious reasons why company executives must take safety seriously. Insurance rates are on the rise: In Virginia, workers compensation rates rose an average of 1.1 percent in 1999, the first increase in five years. Workers compensation insurance used to be a buyer’s market. In recent years it wasn’t unusual for companies to have insurance claims — even significant ones — and still see their premiums go down, says Michael E. Lorenzo, vice president of risk engineering at Glen Allen-based Hilb, Rogal & Hamilton Co. But now the only way a company can cut premiums is to improve its safety record.

The state is also assessing higher fines for breaking the rules. “Until fairly recently, the maximum fine for serious citations was $1,000 and for willful citations was $10,000,” says attorney Dana Rust, a partner in McGuire Woods Battle & Boothe’s labor and employment office in Richmond. Now the fines are $7,000 and $70,000 respectively. A serious compliance issue might be that employees aren’t wearing safety glasses when there is serious potential for injury. A willful violation occurs when the employer shows reckless disregard for the statute or continues violating it. A criminal citation results if the violation is willful and resulted in a fatality.

Because litigation is expensive, many employers haven’t challenged fines. But with higher penalties, legal challenges are becoming more common. “If you’re completely successful, the citation will be vacated and there is no penalty. But sometimes the best you can hope for is to have it recharacterized from willful to serious. You’re conceding that there was a violation, but not an improper state of mind,” Rust says.

Charging a fine and collecting it, however, can be entirely different matters, says Daniel LeBlanc, president of the 200,000-member Virginia State AFL-CIO. True, enforcement may be up — Virginia’s approximately 38 safety and 21 health-compliance officers conducted 2,555 health and safety inspections in 1999, 700 more than in 1996. But it’s not enough, says LeBlanc. At current rates, it would take compliance officers 72 years to inspect every business once, he says. He blames the General Assembly for not increasing funding to the labor department. He’s also disgusted when the state grabs a public relations bonanza for issuing stiff fines, which are later whittled down. Meanwhile, Virginia doesn’t compare well nationally in enforcement, according to a recent AFL-CIO report. It found that the average penalty assessed for a serious violation for Virginia companies in 1998 was $546. That compares with a national average of $709. The state ranked 39th in penalties collected, according to the study.

Nonetheless, labor leaders such as LeBlanc and business executives alike have praise for the state’s voluntary programs to make workplaces safer. Two programs are involved: the Voluntary Protection Program for large employers and the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program for small businesses. The latter exempts the business from routine inspections for three to four years as long as the company conducts and submits an internal health audit each year. All in all, there are 22 firms in the program for small businesses and 12 in the program for large businesses. Virginia launched the initiatives in 1995 and is one of 13 states that offer such programs.

The Voluntary Protection Program is a complex affair. Getting employees involved, hosting teams from the state and managing the paperwork for the program can take as long as three years. Going through the program is worth the effort, says A. Spencer Curtis, environmental safety and health manager at Lockheed Martin in Manassas, a defense electronics contractor that has been a Voluntary Protection Program site since early 1999. He says the company had a good safety record even before enrolling, but the program requires employee involvement and that added a new dynamic. “Rather than someone from management or outside saying, ‘Do it this way,’ the solutions the employees came up with are more creative and better,” he says. “Employees then buy into the whole process.” The result is a better-than-average safety record, with an injury rate one-third of what a typical industry of its type would have, says Curtis.

Better safety means better productivity, too. While Curtis doesn’t have measurements confirming higher productivity, he does believe it’s a byproduct of a safe working environment. “I don’t see employees dwelling on potential problems or grumbling that they shouldn’t have to work under certain conditions,” he says.

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To enjoy the same benefits as Lockheed Martin, experts say that company officials can take a first step of contacting their insurance company’s loss control department for an assessment of their risks. Industry trade organizations also can give useful tips. Companies can enroll in the state’s voluntary programs.

Even martial arts can play a part in some companies’ imaginative efforts to improve safety. Busch Gardens and Virginia Power have worked with a Portland, Ore.-based firm named Strategic Safety Associates to teach martial arts movement skills that improve balance, coordination and control. “Many injuries are movement injuries. We use martial arts movement activities, not fighting, to help attack these strains, sprains, trips and falls,” says Robert Pater, managing director of Strategic Safety.

Yet many companies have bigger problems than ill-coordinated workers. When accidents happen, tension between management and employees may be lurking under the surface. Pater says one major misstep managers take is when they announce a safety program and then simultaneously order: “Now get the product out the door.” At the same time, meeting over safety issues can be a critical first step in renewing good relations between managers and workers.

Stress also is a big factor contributing to accidents and employee violence. Mark Gorkin, a self-proclaimed “stress doctor,” has carved out a market in helping such employers as the U.S. Postal Service help manage their employees’ stress. The Washington, D.C.-based clinical social worker says that some 90 percent of people see doctors for some ailment that is stress related. In today’s “lean and mean” workplaces, there is increasing pressure on workers. And some pay less attention to the task at hand, increasing the risk for injuries. Gorkin works with supervisors and employees on talking about frustrations and expectations.

Employers only help themselves by preventing accidents, since the costs to them go beyond lawsuits and fines. If a key worker is hurt or killed, production can stop, resulting in lost productivity. And workplace injuries and fatalities have a ripple effect. Only one worker might be injured. But co-workers go home at the end of the workday wondering if it could have been them — and if management cares.

For more information on subjects that appear in this feature, contact Strategic Safety Associates, www.movesmart.com  or Mark Gorkin, www.stressdoc.com.