The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created as part of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 by the government in an effort to help protect workers throughout the United States from hazards in the workplace.
Today, OSHA has 2,100 inspectors throughout the country monitoring and protecting approximately 130 million Americans on more than 8 million jobsites across the United States. Unfortunately, even with such workplace standards and precautionary rules and laws in place, accidents still do happen.
Despite the various protections in place to protect workers throughout the U.S., each year thousands of workers are killed at the workplace, including many at construction job sites. In 2015, there were 4,836 deaths to workers on jobsites. This averages out to more than 93 deaths per week and more than 13 per day. More than 20 percent of these deaths occurred on construction sites. Excluding highway collisions, the most common causes included falls, being struck by an object and electrocution.
The most common violations include insufficient or non-existent fall protection, unsatisfactory hazard communication standards, inadequate scaffolding safety requirements, insufficient respiratory protection and insufficient hazardous energy control.
If your family has recently lost a loved one due to construction negligence, you may wish to speak with a law firm familiar with wrongful death to determine whether you could be entitled to compensation. Compensation can include not only pain and suffering for the spouse but also medical costs associated with the accident and fatal injuries as well as future lost wages as result of the death. Anyone killed while at work should be given justice, whatever form that may take.
Source: Findlaw.com “Workplace Safety: OSHA and OSHA Act,” Accessed July 2, 2017