Workplace Deaths In NJ Reach Highest Level In Nearly 20 Years

NEW JERSEY - More New Jersey workers died as a result of workplace injuries in 2022 than in any other year in almost two decades, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics last month.

One hundred sixteen workers were mortally wounded in the Garden State that year, with nearly half of those deaths stemming from transportation-related incidents. Of those transportation-related incidents, 10 involved pedestrian vehicular incidents, 11 involved roadway collisions with another vehicle and 12 collisions involved a driver striking an animal or object on the side of the road. Related: NJ Temp Workers Say Tragic Car Crash Shows Urgent Need For Change

Twenty-one more deaths were attributed to exposure to harmful substances or environments; 19 deaths were attributed to falls or slips and another 18 deaths involved an “intentional injury” by a person, including five homicides, according to the data. Roughly a dozen suicides in the workplace were also reported.

The 116 fatal injuries is the highest number New Jersey has recorded since 2004, which claimed 129 victims.

"While most of the fatal injuries in New Jersey are in transportation and [the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration] and the state occupational safety and health agencies generally do not exercise authority over highway driving, we are disappointed that the state reached a record number of fatalities," a U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson told Patch.

The 2022 deaths were largely represented by private sector employers, according to the data. 107 deadly injury victims were employed privately, while three victims worked in local government, four worked for the state government and two were not detailed in the data. Read more: Construction Worker Falls In Essex County Pose Deadly Risk: OSHA

Sixty-nine thousand nonfatal workplace injuries were also reported that year in the private sector, with another 22,300 nonfatal injuries reported by state and local government employers.

‘Sobering’ Stats Nationwide, OSHA Says

The New Jersey data reflects national trends, which saw a 5.7 percent increase from fatal work injuries in 2021. In fact, a U.S. worker died every 96 minutes from a work-related injury in 2022 compared to 101 minutes in 2021, according to the government data.

Texas saw the highest number of fatal workplace incidents in 2022 with 578 workplace deaths; California, Florida and New York followed behind with 504, 307 and 251 deaths, respectively. New Jersey had the 18th highest number of worker deaths, placing it just behind its neighbor Pennsylvania (which recorded 183 deaths).

Black and Hispanic workers saw the highest increases in fatality rates nationwide, OSHA officials said. Black workers’ fatality rate increased 12.4 percent and Hispanic workers’ rate rose by 10.4 percent from last year.

In New Jersey, 22 Black non-Hispanic workers died in 2022, up 57.14 percent from 2021. The fatality rate decreased in the Garden State for Hispanic workers in 2022, down more than 10 percent with 33 workplace deaths in 2021.

The latest nationwide statistics serve as “a sobering reminder of the important work we must do, especially for Black and Hispanic workers who saw the largest increase in workplace fatalities,” OSHA said in a statement.

Transportation incidents remained the most frequent type of fatal event for U.S. workers, accounting for 37.7 percent of all occupational fatalities, according to the data. There were 2,066 fatal injuries from transportation incidents in 2022, a 4.2 percent increase from 1,982 in 2021.

In New Jersey, transportation-related occupational deaths similarly spiked, up 58.6 percent from 29 reported workplace deaths in 2021 and 100% from 23 workplace deaths in 2019.

Warehousing, transportation and construction represented the industries with the highest number of workplace fatalities in the Garden State in 2022, with 29 victims in transportation/warehousing and 22 victims in construction. Of the 29 transportation workers, 22 died in air transportation-related incidents. Related: Here's How You're Most Likely To Die On The Job In New Jersey

"The increase in work-related fatalities from harmful substances and workplace violence serves as a call to action for OSHA, employers, and other stakeholders to address these very serious issues," the U.S. Department of Labor spokesperson told Patch.

"We also continue to utilize all our enforcement and compliance tools to prevent slips, trips and falls. Training needs to be part of overall worker health. We are committed to providing proper resources to workers, just as we are committed to protecting them from physical hazards on the job."

‘Well-Known and Preventable Hazards’ Remain

Other industries represented in New Jersey's 2022 workplace deaths data were natural resources/mining (three deaths), agriculture/forestry (three deaths), waste management (five deaths), healthcare and social assistance (three deaths), manufacturing (six deaths) and retail (seven deaths).

As Patch previously reported, an employee with the Middletown Sewerage Authority died after he was found at the bottom of a hole in May 2022. The sewage treatment plant was later fined $168,000 after a state agency found multiple "willful, serious" and "repeated" safety violations at the plant. Related: Middletown Sewage Treatment Plant Fined $168K After Employee's Death

The same month, Armando Ribau, a 53-year-old worker at a Sayreville steel mill, was killed after he was pulled in and crushed by a rolling mill machine he was adjusting. A federal investigation later found the equipment was not shut down using the required procedures to protect employees from hazards, such as the unexpected startup of a machine.

2022 marked the same year three Amazon employees died on the job at warehouses in Robbinsville, Monroe Township and Carteret within the span of one month (one worker struck his head after falling off a 3-foot ladder; the nature of the other two deaths have not yet been publicly made available). OSHA later cleared Amazon of workplace citations in all three incidents. Related: NJ Amazon Employee Death Wasn't Work-Related, Company Says

The online retail giant's warehouse workplace conditions drew national criticism after the New Jersey deaths made headlines in 2022. Doug Parker, OSHA's assistant secretary of labor, later criticized Amazon's "hazardous work conditions and processes, leading to serious worker injuries" in a 2023 statement, imploring the retailer to "take these injuries seriously and implement a company-wide strategy to protect their employees from these well-known and preventable hazards."

In mid-2022, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin penned a letter signed by 16 other attorneys general calling on OSHA officials to require employers of over 100 workers in high-risk industries to report more detailed information about workplace injuries and make the information publicly available. The resulting rule went into effect this month.

But legislation addressing workplace safety in the New Jersey Legislature vary by industry and occupation, and a Patch analysis of bills referred to the Assembly Labor Committee didn't find any current bills targeting warehouse or transportation worker safety (a warehouse conditions-related bill introduced several months after the Amazon warehouse incidents died in a Senate committee).

One proposed measure, A5898, seeks to establish an occupational heat stress standard and "Occupational Heat-Related Illness and Injury Prevention Program" in place of an OSHA-adopted heat stress standard. The last New Jersey heat-related workplace death on record dates back to 2016, though officials warn that heat-related deaths — the leading weather-related killer — “is becoming more dangerous as 18 of the last 19 years were the hottest years on record,” the bill reads, adding the measure would protect private and public employees at risk of heat-related injuries in agriculture, construction and other industries.

Another bill, A1855, introduced late last year aims to expand protections to Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Delaware River Port Authority and other workers under the New Jersey Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health Act.

In a 2023 op-ed on Patch written by Patricia Jones, the director of OSHA's Avenel office, the safety official urged employees to do their own part in preventing deadly workplace injuries.

"We all have a role to play in making sure our nation’s workplaces do not endanger our safety and health," the official wrote.

"Demand that the stores you frequent, the companies that get your business, and those you hire protect the people they employ. If they won’t, take your business to those who respect their workers’ rights to a safe and healthy workplace, and who don’t put profit ahead of the lives of the people who help them earn it."