The government uses only employer records to reach its conclusions. The campus researchers used Workers’ Compensation, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other reports in addition to those of the BLS. The MSU study estimated there were on average about 869,000 work-related injuries and illnesses in Michigan each year in 1999-2001, compared to the BLS’s finding of 281,567. About 1 in 5 workers became ill or injured in that three-year period, according to the MSU research, while the BLS arrived at a ratio of 1 in 15.

Nearly half of all injuries reported in the MSU study occurred in manufacturing or construction, another 20 percent in services, and close to 17 percent in retail and wholesale trade.

One reason for the BLS undercount is that it excludes from its analysis those who are self-employed, workers on farms with fewer than 11 employees, federal employees, and public workers in about half the states. The MSU researchers also concluded that employers have an incentive to underreport in order to avoid insurance or regulatory costs.

At the same time, companies often pressure their employees to work injured. As the Militant reported in its Dec. 21, 2004, issue, the bosses at the Arch Minerals Dugout Canyon mine in Price, Utah, maintain a bonus program under which all workers lose 20 percent of their bonus each time a miner reports an on-the-job injury. Workers there told the Militant it’s common for an individual to labor injured rather than be held responsible for their co-workers losing their bonus income.

The MSU researchers say their own study may also undercount the number of workers whose job conditions cause illness or injury. Both the BLS and Workers’ Compensation databases, they say, “are likely to miss illnesses with long latency periods such as pneumoconiosis [often known as black lung disease] and cancer.”  
 
 
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