"Wyoming workers are not following safety rules."

On September 9th, we had a posting titled "Wyoming workers push state to examine worker safety (http://bit.ly/VddfU)." Two days later Dr. George A. Conway, director of OSHA's Alaska site, who's been studying Wyoming's high rate of workplace fatalities, said the state needs to foster an environment where workers regard following safety procedures as proof of their professionalism, not as a sign of weakness. Dr.Conway says that getting workers to understand the importance of work place safety is particularly important, "in ornery cultures like Alaska and Wyoming." Dr.Conway worked as a doctor in Wyoming in the mid-80s.

Dr. Paul Anderson, also from Alaska's OSHA's office, said that in job site fatalities safety procedures were in place on 70 percent of the jobs, but weren't followed 98 percent of the time. Gary Hartman, a Freudenthal adviser and former district judge, is leading the task force in Wyoming. He said Thursday that the group called on federal officials from Alaska to lend their expertise because that state has seen sharp reductions in fatalities in its hazardous commercial fishing and helicopter logging industries. The task force, led by Hartman, formed committees to look into work place safety issues in the oil and gas industry, the transportation industry and the construction industry. It also set up a committee to consider data collection. It's too early to decide whether or not the task force will recommend state legislation to address the issue.

Hartman said he found it interesting that while the state has been emphasizing the importance of having safety programs, the data Anderson presented showed that in most fatal accidents workers hadn't been following established safety procedures.

Sources:
Neary, Ben. "Feds say most Wyoming workers killed on the job not following safety rules." The Examiner. Associated Press, 11 Sept. 2009. Web. 14 Sept. 2009.
-Thanks to @AEMStore (Twitter) for the article lead!