- During this season of high work activity for teens, some sobering statistics to consider:
Every year, approximately 200,000 teenagers in the United States are injured on the job, and about 70 teens are killed at work. Every six minutes, a teenager is injured seriously enough on the job to require treatment in a hospital emergency room.
Are these numbers acceptable to anyone? Solutions, anyone?
As if it isn't hard enough to get a decent job in a new country, recent stats bear out that immigrant workers are more likely to get hurt at work than native-born employees. Two new studies by the The Institute for Work & Health (IWH), an independent, not-for-profit organization, compare work conditions and injury rates between immigrants and workers born in Canada, and come up with some startling conclusions.
I love how the word about workplace safety and health - about getting respect as employees - is spreading through the power of Facebook! More and more concerned parents, teens, workers, employers from all walks of life are joining our FB group! We have 62 members now - and that's only in 3 months.
So for the last couple of days I have been mulling over the article in the Toronto Star titled "Hiding Injuries Rewards Workers." The article basically outlines how many companies are hiding employee injuries so that they will save money and be eligible for the WSIB rebate. The article goes on to show how companies force their employees back to work before their injuries are healed, and then they are forced to do menial jobs beneath their capabilities. As I read this article, I guess I felt pretty double-minded about it...
Duane Craig writes in his excellent article, Manslaughter on the Jobsite at the blog, The Construction Informer: "There is another side to safety on construction sites... the overwhelming difficulty in getting people to voluntarily comply with safety rules on the job and having enough visibility into what is really going on to make them think twice about not complying."
