As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect countless working people, with nearly 1 million deaths in the United States, the AFL-CIO on Tuesday released its 31st annual report, Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, a national and state-by-state profile of worker safety and health. A few of the grim statistics include 340 working people died every day in 2020 because of hazardous working conditions; an estimated 120,000 workers died from occupational diseases; and while employers reported nearly 3.2 million work-related injuries and illnesses, underreporting is widespread—the true toll of work-related injuries and illnesses is 5.4 million to 8.1 million each year. “That’s tens of thousands of families losing a parent, a child, a sibling, every single year,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. “Latino and Black workers specifically remain at greater risk of dying on the job than all workers. That is, frankly, unacceptable.” Comments are closed.
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