Eau Claire Leader-Telegram. February 29, 2024.
Editorial: Workplace fatalities going in the wrong direction
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report Thursday on workplace fatalities in Wisconsin. It’s not good news.
There were 125 such deaths in 2022, the most recent year for which the BLS has released figures. Three-quarters of the fatalities involved people who were wage or salary employees. The 10-year trend has been for increases aside from a slight dip in 2020-2021.
Fatal incidents on the job are up nearly 29% since 2013. That’s not the direction things should be going. Only a third of the cases from 2022 involved transportation. That’s probably the easiest source to understand. When people are driving for work, there’s a risk involved. Crashes happen. Some will be fatal, though that trend is generally going the right way.
The distribution of causes for fatalities is concerning. Almost one out of every five deaths is due to contact with objects or machinery. That’s about five percentage points higher than the U.S. as a whole. Deaths caused by exposure to harmful substances or environments are a bit higher in Wisconsin, too, though that gap isn’t nearly as big.
Violent deaths, caused either by people or animals accounted for 15 fatalities, a count similar to the national average. Surprisingly, homicides weren’t the biggest source of violent deaths. Suicides were.
Not to state the painfully obvious, but there is risk in virtually anything people do. Falls, slips and trips accounted for 17 workplace deaths, after all. And some professions have greater inherent risk. There’s a good chance that the state’s agriculture and forestry industries, which accounted for almost 20% of the fatalities, are why Wisconsin was above the national average in deaths from contact with equipment.
That suspicion has support from one of the lines in the information from the BLS: “Of the 125 fatal work injuries in Wisconsin, 74 percent worked for wages and salaries; the remainder were self-employed. The most frequent fatal event for wage and salary workers was transportation incidents; contact with objects and equipment was the most frequent fatal event for self-employed workers.” Farmers, generally speaking, fall into the self-employed column.
But it certainly seems like some of these incidents shouldn’t be happening. Homicides are the undeniable example. They are avoidable every single time provided people behave humanely.
Wisconsin isn’t alone in seeing a rise. The figure was up nationally for 2022 as well, though that increase has been far less consistent than our state’s. Concerningly, it’s not just the absolute number of deaths that’s on the rise in the U.S. It’s also the rate of deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers.
Unintentional overdoses on materials people encounter at work have been on the rise nationally in each year since 2012. There are rare circumstances in which an uncontrolled release of toxins causes the deaths, but those don’t account for all the lives lost. Other incidents are avoidable.
Workplace safety is everyone’s responsibility. Employees shouldn’t be needlessly placed in dangerous situations. That’s on employers to ensure. Cutting corners on safety shouldn’t be acceptable for either side.
Assigning blame isn’t our purpose here. It’s to remind. We can, and should, do better than this. With advances in safety equipment there’s no good reason to still see the rate of deaths rising for American workers.
The thing about trends is that they change. This can be reversed. It will take everyone paying attention to safety and making sure they aren’t taking unnecessary risks.
We’ve brought the number of workplace fatalities done before. It can be done again.
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Wisconsin State Journal. March 3, 2024.
Editorial: Really? 4 years, 10 months and 17 days more of Senator ‘No’?
Four more years?
Unfortunately, that’s how long U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson still has in office.
Technically, it’s four years, 10 months and 17 days. But who’s counting?
We are.
The guy is more grating than ever, having narrowly won the third term he pledged not to seek. Presumably, he doesn’t care what his constituents think because he doesn’t plan to run again in 2028. He’s free to embrace his inner Scrooge.
Johnson has chronically voted “no” on major, bipartisan legislation that has — or would have — helped Wisconsin families and our nation. Just as bad, Johnson seems more obsessed than ever with trashing life-saving vaccines.
Whatever his phobia is with modern medicine, he needs to get over it and do his job.
That doesn’t seem likely.
Johnson last week imagined a “ COVID Cartel coverup ” in which federal health agencies, pharmaceutical companies, “legacy media” and technology giants are conspiring to censor the truth about public health risks from vaccines.
Please.
The most thorough and prestigious medical studies conclude COVID vaccines saved millions of American lives. And because of the skepticism Johnson and others have spread, the measles are coming back. Too many people are passing on preventive shots long considered routine.
We already called for Johnson to resign in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Johnson helped fuel the destruction and violence by encouraging then-President Donald Trump’s worst instincts and lies.
Johnson obviously isn’t taking our advice. But we refuse to ignore what a lousy job he’s doing on Wisconsin’s behalf — and how out of step he is with the Midwestern mainstream.
Wisconsin’s senior senator said last month he “won’t be supporting” a modest increase in the child tax credit that would have lifted thousands of Wisconsin children out of poverty. He’s opposed even though the vast majority of the Republican-run House voted 357-70 in favor.
Johnson recently voted against military assistance for Ukraine, hurting the cause of freedom abroad. Our brave and outgunned ally desperately needs more ammunition in its heroic fight against totalitarian Russia. Thankfully, 70 of 100 senators — including 22 of Johnson’s GOP colleagues — advanced the sensible package to the House.
Johnson helped kill a bipartisan deal for better security on America’s southern border, saying it wasn’t good enough. Apparently, he prefers nothing to something.
In recent years, Johnson voted against the most substantial and bipartisan gun safety law in a generation. He voted “no” to the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is improving Wisconsin’s roads and bridges.
Johnson even shrugged off losing manufacturing jobs in his hometown of Oshkosh, saying, “It’s not like we don’t have enough jobs.” With that attitude, no wonder he voted against the bipartisan Chips Act, which will boost the production of semiconductors in America, rather than forcing our nation to rely on China. His own Republican Senate leader and 16 other GOP senators supported it.
Johnson claims to care about America’s soaring debt. Yet he was happy to approve the tax cut in 2017 that’s added trillions to the pile of IOUs being foisted on our children and grandchildren. Johnson talks tough about blocking spending now that his party is out of power, but he mostly went along with the joyride when Trump was in power.
Johnson has repeatedly voted against raising the nation’s debt ceiling so the government can honor its financial commitments. That’s like refusing to pay your credit card bill after running up lots of charges. He seems to want America to default on its loans.
Most of his colleagues took the tough votes for him, to keep the economy going.
The end of Johnson’s third — and hopefully final — term can’t come soon enough.
Wisconsin State Journal editorial board
The views expressed in the editorials are shaped by the board, independent of news coverage decisions elsewhere in the newspaper.
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