Under-reporting

Workplace illness

Earlier this week the Government Accountability Office announced that employers routinely under-report work-related injuries and illnesses out of fear of increasing their workers' compensation costs.

Perhaps most worryingly, however, is the fact that the GOA's warning essentially calls into question the accuracy of the nationwide data compiled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) each year.

According to the GAO - the auditing arm of Congress - there are a multitude of reasons why injuries and illnesses go unreported. For instance, while from an employers standpoint the main reason is to avoid increased compensation costs or risk hurting their chances of winning contracts, the problem doesn't seem to end there.

In fact, the GAO also notes how workers fail to report illnesses or injuries as well, largely because they don't want to risk being fired or disciplined for reporting the issue. Another key driver for a lag in safety reports seems to be that safety-based incentives programs often stop workers from running the risk of tarnishing that safe "image."

"Undermining health and safety"

The issue has led Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to warn that the "widespread under-reporting so clearly documented in this report is undermining the health and safety of American workers."

He warns that unless the full extent of workplace hazards are realized, the issues cannot be fully addressed.

The report has also pushed the OSHA to adopt the accountability office's recommendations, which include requiring inspectors to interview employees during all audits to check the accuracy of employer-provided injury data; the concern largely being that because of OSHA's "sole reliance on employer-reported injury and illness data" in one of its major surveys, "some academic studies have reported that the survey may under-count the total number of workplace injuries and illnesses."

Now calls are coming for better processes. In the low-wage market specifically, say analysts, there are all kinds of systematic violations, forcing employees to work longer hours for less pay - and these violations extend to health and safety.

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety, probably sums up the issue best of all. In an interview with the New York Times she said: "This report confirms that when it comes to the documenting of workplace injuries, we can't just take employers at their word. The system, to this point, has been all too easy to game."

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