85 Percent of Workers Say Job Safety More Critical than Wages, Other Issues

More than eight of ten workers, 85 percent, rank job safety first in importance among workplace issues, according to a new University of Chicago study.

The overwhelming response suggests that workers' concerns are often dismissed and workplace accidents taken for granted, said Tom W. Smith of the university's National Opinion Research Center. He noted, for instance, that the widespread coverage of the Gulf oil disaster "has virtually ignored the 11 workers killed by the blowout and destruction of the drilling platform."

Both the deaths and the environmental disaster could have been avoided "if optimal safety had been maintained," Smith said.

Robert Shull of the Public Welfare Foundation, which commissioned the study, said, "Unsafe working conditions end up costing the public dearly". But no matter what the cost to the general public, the workers and their families pay the highest price."

Read the full report on the foundation's website, www.publicwelfare.org.

Separately, CWA Occupational Safety and Health Director Dave Le Grande said the first joint session for CWA and USW occupational safety and health trainers will be held September 13-17 at USW Headquarters in Pittsburgh. The training is part of a five-year grant program to CWA and the Steelworkers funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.