labor lawAdivision of labor law center

According to a recently released report, Nevada worker safety numbers show that 503,530 workers suffered tears, strains, or sprains. Painful back injuries accounted for 270,890 accidents in 2005. And 255,750 people fell in their places of employment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) monitors Nevada’s workplace safety issues.

Nevada worker safety is endangered by on-the-job accidents. The chilling workplace statistics represent only the private sector. They do not include numbers for jobs in the non-profit arena, or in public jobs, including high-risk professions like firefighting, law enforcement, and paramedical work.

Education is the key to developing a solid workplace safety plan. And a workplace safety plan can be a matter of life and death.

The cost is high for both workers and for their employers. As the figures show, workplace accidents, besides being tragic, can end in lost pay, high-priced medical care, and lawsuits, to name a few problems.

Some of the common causes of workplace accidents are slips, trips, and falls. Although they’re usually not seen as dangerous, they’re the second most frequent causes of death in the workplace, following only after driving accidents. Falls at work resulted in 732 deaths in 2005. Accidents while driving on the job left 1,258 people dead.

OSHA, in charge of monitoring Nevada’s workplace safety, has developed what it calls the Workplace Safety Pack. The goal of the Safety Pack is to help make safety information available to employers and employees alike in a clear, easy to understand format. That’s because OSHA believes education is the key to a workplace safety plan. It recommends pointing out to employees the importance of taking safe steps and telling them just what those proper safety steps should be.

A good program would remind employees of the need for workplace safety. And it would teach them all the necessary safety measures.

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