The oil refinery business is certainly a dangerous one, but it may be actually more dangerous than statistics lead us to believe. Increasingly, refineries are using contract workers especially for maintenance and some of the more dangerous jobs. And should an accident occur, deaths and injuries are not always listed as a “refinery death” because the workers were not technically on the employee payroll.
As the Houston Chronicle reported on May 16, 2005, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recorded zero deaths for both 2002 and 2003. Yet the newspaper found that at least nine deaths had occurred at oil refineries. Many were listed as “special trade” or “general contractor”, so the BLS coded the deaths under these categories. In one case, a contract worker who died cleaning a storage tank slipped off a ladder and died of heat and dehydration. But because the work being done was not directly related to the refining process, it was not deemed to be a “refinery death.”
The Houston Chronicle also found another glitch in the system. If the total number of deaths coded as refinery deaths recorded at the end of the year is less than three, then BLS still lists it as zero. This is supposedly to protect privacy of the families involved and to meet confidentiality agreements the BLS has with each individual state in return for collecting data.
Unfortunately, government statistics like the BLS and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports are the only real sources of industry information. Each plant records its own logs, but these are generally not available to the public – and do not include injuries or deaths to contract workers. Industry organizations also track statistics, but again they are not available and not accurate.
The upshot of all this is that individual oil refineries and the industry as a whole is dodging their responsibility and liability – and the government is in effect helping them to do that. Contract workers are becoming more and more prevalent in the petrochemical industry, and are used for the most dangerous jobs. The government only measures the injuries and deaths of permanent workers at a refinery when determining a “dangerous” facility, and contractor data is largely ignored. The oil companies pay less fines and report high safety standards while workers continue to pay the price.
If you have been injured while working at a refinery either as a full-time employee or a contract worker call attorney David I. Fuchs at 800-570-2858.