KristinaDragana (CC BY 2.0)

About 150 U.S. workers are killed on the job every day, according to a report by the AFL-CIO, the largest alliance of labor unions in the United States. North Dakota was the deadliest state, with 56 people killed on the job in 2013, the group said.

The Guardian reports:

In 2013, 4,585 US workers were killed on the job and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases, found the report. Additionally, about 3.8m work-related injuries and illnesses were reported. The AFL-CIO estimates that the real number of work-related injuries is somewhere between 7.6m to 11.4m each year as many work-related injuries are not reported. …

While the overall fatality rate has decreased in the last four years, dropping to 3.3 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2013 from 3.6 in 2010, the fatality rate for Latino workers increased to 3.9 from 3.7 in 2012. The report found that 817 Latino workers were killed on the job in 2013, up from 748 deaths in 2012, and that 66% of the fatalities, equivalent to 542 deaths, in 2013 were among workers born outside the US.

Workplace deaths are not always caused by accidents. According to the report, workplace violence is the second leading cause of job fatalities in the US and was responsible for 773 workers deaths and 26,520 injuries in 2013.

Female workers suffered 70 percent of the “lost-time” injuries related to workplace violence, the report said, while transportation accidents are the leading cause of death on the job.

Read more here.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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