See reports of the investigations into the Willow Island Disaster

Click here for more from the Willow Island series

Two months after 51 construction workers plunged to their deaths at Willow Island, then-Assistant Labor Secretary Eula Bingham explained why her agency couldn't have inspected the construction site more frequently.

At the time, 17 Occupational Safety and Health Administration officers were charged with overseeing 31,000 workplaces across West Virginia.

Gallery

[+] Enlarge

Then-Gov. Jay Rockefeller (center) tours the wreckage with inspectors after the deaths of 51 workers in the collapse of scaffolding at the Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island in April 1978.

Today, staffing at OSHA's West Virginia office in Charleston is nearly a third smaller than it was when the Willow Island scaffold came crashing down.

Twelve OSHA officers must cover the entire state, inspecting power plants, steel mills, logging operations and all other workplaces except coal mines.

Only nine of those 12 are full-time inspectors. The other three are team leaders, supervisors who help out on more complicated investigations, OSHA officials say.

It would take those nine OSHA inspectors an estimated 100 years to inspect each West Virginia workplace once, the AFL-CIO said in a report released last week.

Bush administration officials are confident they've given OSHA enough staff and money to protect West Virginia workers.

"We believe the agency has sufficient resources deployed in West Virginia to adequately protect employees," said Sharon Worthy, a labor department spokeswoman. Worthy cited 176 construction inspections across the state in 2007, 451 citations issued and $477,000 in proposed safety fines.

But the AFL-CIO report ranked West Virginia third among states with the highest workplace death rates, behind only Alaska and Wyoming. The ranking was based on 2006 figures, and included West Virginia's coal-mining industry, which had its deadliest year since 1981.

Still, non-mining workplace deaths nearly doubled in West Virginia during the last federal fiscal year. Thirty-one West Virginia workers died on the job during the period from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007, according to OSHA data. That compares to 17 deaths during the previous year.

'Falling further and further behind'

Across the country today, labor groups are sponsoring events to mark Workers Memorial Day, an annual commemoration of workers killed and injured on the job. A ceremony is planned in Wheeling at the Walter Reuther Memorial along the Ohio River.

Since 1970, when the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed, workplace safety and health conditions have dramatically improved.

But in its annual Death on the Job report, the AFL-CIO said that progress is slowing.

In 2006, 5,840 workers died on the job across the country, up from 5,734 deaths in 2005.

"As the economy, the workforce and hazards are changing, we are falling further and further behind in our efforts to protect workers from new and existing problems," the AFL-CIO said.

'Nobody should die on the job'

On Feb. 7, a spark ignited sugar dust that had built up at Imperial Sugar's Port Wentworth, Ga., plant. The blast was so powerful that 13 workers were killed and dozens more injured.

More than a year earlier, in November 2006, the federal Chemical Safety Board had urged OSHA to adopt new regulations to prevent combustible dust explosions. OSHA declined, and was instead relying on voluntary industry measures.

Now, the Imperial Sugar disaster - and the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate - has Congress refocused on workplace safety problems.

Lawmakers are staging hearings and issuing news releases. Committee staffers are writing reports. Some reform legislation is moving forward.

Workplace disasters tend to prompt such actions. But the slow, daily drumbeat of smaller accidents and illnesses claims more workers' lives.

See reports of the investigations into the Willow Island Disaster

Click here for more from the Willow Island series

Two months after 51 construction workers plunged to their deaths at Willow Island, then-Assistant Labor Secretary Eula Bingham explained why her agency couldn't have inspected the construction site more frequently.

At the time, 17 Occupational Safety and Health Administration officers were charged with overseeing 31,000 workplaces across West Virginia.

"Our area offices are constantly making very difficult choices in using inspection resources to respond to the most serious workplace problems," Bingham told a June 1978 congressional hearing held just up the river from Willow Island at St. Marys. "Even if this agency were to double or triple its compliance resources, we could never regularly visit the five million workplaces throughout the nation."

Today, staffing at OSHA's West Virginia office in Charleston is nearly a third smaller than it was when the Willow Island scaffold came crashing down.

Twelve OSHA officers must cover the entire state, inspecting power plants, steel mills, logging operations and all other workplaces except coal mines.

Only nine of those 12 are full-time inspectors. The other three are team leaders, supervisors who help out on more complicated investigations, OSHA officials say.

It would take those nine OSHA inspectors an estimated 100 years to inspect each West Virginia workplace once, the AFL-CIO said in a report released last week.

Bush administration officials are confident they've given OSHA enough staff and money to protect West Virginia workers.

"We believe the agency has sufficient resources deployed in West Virginia to adequately protect employees," said Sharon Worthy, a labor department spokeswoman. Worthy cited 176 construction inspections across the state in 2007, 451 citations issued and $477,000 in proposed safety fines.

But the AFL-CIO report ranked West Virginia third among states with the highest workplace death rates, behind only Alaska and Wyoming. The ranking was based on 2006 figures, and included West Virginia's coal-mining industry, which had its deadliest year since 1981.

Still, non-mining workplace deaths nearly doubled in West Virginia during the last federal fiscal year. Thirty-one West Virginia workers died on the job during the period from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007, according to OSHA data. That compares to 17 deaths during the previous year.

'Falling further and further behind'

Across the country today, labor groups are sponsoring events to mark Workers Memorial Day, an annual commemoration of workers killed and injured on the job. A ceremony is planned in Wheeling at the Walter Reuther Memorial along the Ohio River.

Since 1970, when the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed, workplace safety and health conditions have dramatically improved.

But in its annual Death on the Job report, the AFL-CIO said that progress is slowing.

In 2006, 5,840 workers died on the job across the country, up from 5,734 deaths in 2005.

"As the economy, the workforce and hazards are changing, we are falling further and further behind in our efforts to protect workers from new and existing problems," the AFL-CIO said.

'Nobody should die on the job'

On Feb. 7, a spark ignited sugar dust that had built up at Imperial Sugar's Port Wentworth, Ga., plant. The blast was so powerful that 13 workers were killed and dozens more injured.

More than a year earlier, in November 2006, the federal Chemical Safety Board had urged OSHA to adopt new regulations to prevent combustible dust explosions. OSHA declined, and was instead relying on voluntary industry measures.

Now, the Imperial Sugar disaster - and the Democratic takeover of the House and Senate - has Congress refocused on workplace safety problems.

Lawmakers are staging hearings and issuing news releases. Committee staffers are writing reports. Some reform legislation is moving forward.

Workplace disasters tend to prompt such actions. But the slow, daily drumbeat of smaller accidents and illnesses claims more workers' lives.

On an average day, 153 workers lose their lives across the country to workplace injuries and disease. Every day, another 11,233 workers are injured on the job.

Eric Frumin, health and safety coordinator for the labor group Change to Win, told Congress earlier this month that wholesale changes are needed to stop the death toll.

"Nobody should die on the job. Period," Frumin said.

Frumin cited production pressures, corporate safety programs that focus on blaming workers for accidents, and "business models that rely on worker and environmental exploitation for profits."

Workers in non-mining industries also are given less protection than coal miners.

Under a nearly 40-year-old federal law, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration is required to inspect all underground coal mines four times a year and surface mines twice annually.

But federal law does not mandate periodic inspections by OSHA of all workplaces, or even of the most dangerous types of workplaces. And if OSHA wanted to do - or were required to do - such inspections, the staff to get it done just isn't there.

OSHA has 2,094 inspectors nationwide. That's one inspector for every 64,000 workers. The International Labor Organization recommends one inspector for every 10,000 workers in industrialized counties.

"At its current staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA 133 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction just once," the AFL-CIO said in its report last week.

Among the AFL-CIO's other findings:

'It can't happen'

Stan Elliott thinks the call came in from the media, maybe a local radio reporter or television station. Elliott was acting area director of the Charleston OSHA office when the Willow Island scaffolding collapsed.

"The first reaction is to dismiss it, because it can't happen," Elliott said. "You hope it didn't happen. But you figure out it did."

A Ripley native who worked as a Union Carbide industrial hygienist, Elliott joined the newly formed OSHA in the early 1970s. He figured he would get a few years experience and go back to the private sector. Now, he's got 35 years with the federal government and is about ready to retire.

Over the years, Elliott has seen major changes in West Virginia's major industries.

Companies such as Carbide and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel used to be the big, dominant employers. Inspectors had a big company to turn to when safety problems were found.

Now, he said, so many companies contract out lots of their work. OSHA used to be able to tie down contractors through a multi-employer policy. Citations would be issued to general contractors, as well as smaller sub-contractors. But a court decision blocked that practice.

Elliott has also watched the decline of unions, even in West Virginia, where organized labor for decades was a major political force. At union shops, Elliott said, workers are more likely to speak out about safety concerns, without fear of losing their jobs.

"Union facilities are the exception to the rule now in West Virginia, and we are one of the more organized states in the country," Elliott said.

Even with limited resources, Elliott still orders an inspection whenever a worker calls with a specific safety complaint. But he says he has learned to be "smarter" about using his staff. Today, OSHA likes to "program" inspections, focusing on more dangerous operations, like logging jobs or oil and gas drilling, Elliott said.

Elliott sees both sides to the debate over an appropriate level of OSHA staffing and agency inspections. The public may prefer to have no workplace deaths or injuries, he said, but are taxpayers willing to pay the costs for OSHA to achieve that goal?

"What's the public's expectation?" Elliott said. "Do they want there to be no accidents? If so, I'm going to need a much bigger staff."

To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.