Montana DOL launches worker safety website

Helena, MT – The Montana Department of Labor and Industry recently launched a website as part of the state’s “slow but steady strides to improve workplace safety.”

The Montana Occupational Health and Safety Surveillance website includes reports on statewide workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities, as well as tools for improving occupational safety and health.

“Our goal at the agency continues to be focused on making sure workers come home safely after work,” Commissioner of Labor and Industry Pam Bucy said in a press release. Bucy called the website a “data-driven resource.”

In tandem with the launch of the website, the department released a report that documents and analyzes recent workplace injuries in Montana. Transportation incidents contributed to more than 50 percent of worker deaths from 2004 to 2014 while accounting for 10 of the 28 overall occupational fatalities in 2014, according to the report.

Other findings:

• 54 workplace fatalities were recorded in 2007, the highest single-year total during the span covered in the report.
• About 25 percent of workers in Montana were employed in high-risk industries such as construction, animal production, truck transportation and crop production in 2013. The national rate for those occupations was 15.4 percent.

“We could greatly reduce the injuries and fatalities due to transportation issues if workers and employers adopted practices that emphasized transportation safety, such as encouraging seatbelt use and driving at safe speeds,” the report states.