by: Anna Tubelonia, Training Director-OSHMS360
I was, and had never been enamored with numbers. Or math. Or figures. My head aches when I stare too long at too many figures. But numbers represent many things. Like our budget at home, how much we spend for things, the tuition fee we save for our children’s schooling and many more. In the area of occupational safety and health, they represent people. On the negative side, these are the people who have died, or who were just plainly injured, or those whose family may lack for food and other necessities because they had to skip work because of all kinds of injuries. On the positive side, these are the workers who left, and came home to work as whole as when they left early in the day. Occupational safety and health wants to steer more and more of our workers to the positive side.
But the negatives make us sit up and notice. So, this is how I find myself a few days ago. I was perusing injury data from the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics Integrated Survey or BITS for short. Their latest data had 2011 as the reference period. I was surprised with the latest findings on Part 7 of their BITS. There are more industry classifications. We are already familiar with Manufacturing; Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing; Mining and Quarrying; Construction; Transportation and Storage. But I was glad that they had finally gotten down to getting more OSH data from industries such as the Wholesale and Retail Trade, Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles; Accommodation and Food Services; Information and Communication; Financial and Insurance Services; Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities; Administrative and Support Services; Repair of Computer and Personal Household Goods; Other Personal Service Activities; and Arts and Entertainment.
To me this is significant since it means the DOLE is getting more information on workers we see in our neighborhood rather than in offices - like our carinderia, fast food and restaurant workers (Accommodation and Food Services); security guards and firms providing messengerial or parcel services (Admin. And Support Services); those who repair our vehicles and technicians who service our laptops, mobile phones and those who set up our internet or cable TV connections.
Now to the figures that makes us all sad. There were a total of 48,975 workers injured in 2011. Fortunately, more than half (28,340) did not have to be absent from work for even a day. Their injuries were minor, probably got treated and were able to go back to their jobs. The other half (20,635) incurred various injuries which made them miss work. In the worst case, 161 workers died. Another 289 suffered permanent incapacities. The majority (20,185) were not able to get back to work for at least a day after their respective injuries.
As expected, Manufacturing had the most cases ( 36 deaths; 94 permanent incapacities and 10,214 who were absent for work for a short time due to injuries. Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing was second at 15 deaths; 10 permanently incapacitated and 2,467 temporary incapacities. Wholesale and Retail Trade, Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motor cycles was 3rd ( 6 deaths; 30 permanent incapacities and 1,578 temporarily unable to work. Transportation and Storage was 4th ( 27 deaths; 55 permanently disabled and 1,396 temporarily unable to work.
Other interesting data: Admin. &Support Services had 20 deaths and 24 permanent incapacities. This is the industry that employs security guards. Construction had 26 deaths abut only 4 permanent incapacities and 674 temporary incapacities.
What kind of injuries did they suffer from? BITS 2011 said majority were superficial injuries and open wounds; dislocations, sprains and strains’ fractures and burns, corrosions and scalds.
As to their occupations, the largest number injured were laborers and unskilled workers. Significantly, 2nd were plant and machine operators and assemblers; 3rd were service workers and shop and market sales workers. Technicians and professionals also suffered some injuries.
What were the top immediate causes of their injuries? They were machines; materials or objects; hand tools; conveying transport equipment and building/structures themselves.
Of course, there are a lot more data from the BITS which can not fit in an article like this. And although these are the so-called “ negatives”, Part 3 of the same BITS also tells us that more companies are becoming more aware of OSH programs such as conduct on OSH orientation for workers, posting of safety signs and signages, info dissemination on OSH, monitoring of OSH conditions and many others. Also, they are sending more workers to fire safety trainings; one-day OSH orientations, emergency preparedness and disaster response, fire safety; 40 hour OSH courses; Construction OSH
I hope that in the future, the “positives” will far outweigh the “negatives” in OSH data that will be generated. Because remember, each number in the data has a face, and significant others who can be adversely affected with what happens to the “face”. Hurray for us in the OSH community as we strive to further bring down the numbers (persons) who will be adversely affected by work accidents and illnesses.
