The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), the world’s oldest professional safety organization, is urging employers to be more active in adopting voluntary national consensus standards and implementing safety and health management systems in response to newly released fatality data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The National Safety Council is alarmed to see a 2% rise in total worker deaths – 5,333 fatal workplace injuries in 2019 compared to 5,250 in 2018 – according to data released on Wednesday, December 16 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of “The Little Prince.” In the midst of the pandemic, employers now more than ever need a plan in case an employee or contractor dies at the workplace.

In the last decade or so many organizations have been placing more of a focus on Serious Injury and Fatality prevention (SIF). The theory behind the traditional “Safety Pyramid” (or Heinrich Safety Triangle) says if we reduce incidents at the “base” of the pyramid, it follows we will reduce incidents at the top of the pyramid at an approximately proportional rate. 

Workplace fatalities were found to be lower in states that have legalized medical marijuana – at least among a certain age group - in a study published on ScienceDirect. “Although there is increasing concern that legalizing medical marijuana will make workplaces more dangerous, little is known about the relationship between medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and workplace fatalities,” according to the study’s authors, who set out to determine what, if any, relationship existed between the two.