The post about OSHA fines hanging over a Pennsylvania printer drew some sharp comments about safety practices in the printing industry. One question was especially provocative: is the recession-battered printing industry skimping on safety by paying less attention than it once did to protecting life and limb on the job?
The answer would be impossible to establish without a full-scale investigation of a kind that neither OSHA nor the industry seems likely to launch anytime soon. But the data we do have indicate that while it’s still quite possible to get hurt or even killed in a printing plant, print firms offer workers a safer environment than private-sector industry as a whole. What’s more, the numbers on safety in printing and related services have been improving steadily for years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) makes those numbers available here. We pulled the reports titled “Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types” from 2000 through 2008, the most recent year for which data are available. In these reports, “incidence rates” represent the number of injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers as calculated by OSHA on the basis of its annual survey of occupational injuries and illnesses (not on incidents actually recorded by OSHA).
A related report, “Numbers of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types,” presents a survey-based count of cases resulting in days away from work, job transfer, or job restriction. Both reports present data according to NAICS code, and in this system, printing and its related support activities are classified as 323.*
See full article at: How Hazardous Is the Printing Industry? – Printing Office.
