West Virginia ranks third in workplace deaths
A new report by the AFL-CIO, Death on the Job 2008, says West Virginia ranked third in the nation for its rate of workplace deaths in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
That year, seventy-nine workers died on the job in West Virginia that year — a death rate twice the national average. Only Alaska and Wyoming were worse.
Twenty-six workers died in vehicle accidents, 22 in fires and explosions, and 14 from contact with objects and equipment.
The Sago Mine Disaster accounts for 12 of those deaths, but even without Sago, it was an unusually bad year…
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