Worker safety a growing issue in Wyoming

Via Kevin Drum this article in the L.A. Times is eye opening,

This is a state anxious to shed its reputation as the most dangerous place in the nation to work.

For the last several years, Wyoming has outpaced the rest of the country in occupational fatalities. At more than three times the national average, the state had 15.6 fatalities per 100,000 workers of all kinds from 2005 to 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But how to improve worker safety -- particularly in the oil fields, where roughnecks die at a higher rate than their counterparts in other states -- has become a source of contention among lawmakers, industry leaders and blue-collar workers.

Many support a governor-led task force charged with seeking ways to decrease such fatalities, with the help of federal safety researchers. A similar program in Alaska reduced fatalities by 49% over 10 years, said Gary Hartman, senior advisor to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

Yet a contingent of roughnecks -- led by a small-town mayor who once worked in Wyoming's oil fields -- contends that real change won't occur until the state makes it easier for injured workers to sue oil companies.

"These multibillion-dollar corporations are completely off the hook from taking care of you," said Leo Beach, 38, whose hand was crushed in an oil field accident. "They turn their back on you. They should be held accountable."

What are the legal hurdles facing the workers? It turns out an injured worker quickly discovers that no one is liable, even in the case of negligence, for his injuries,

State law does not prohibit them from doing so, but in recent years courts have made it increasingly difficult for them to even try, said Riverton Mayor John Vincent, a lawyer who represents injured workers.

Roughnecks don't work directly for oil companies but for independent contractors hired by the firms. The contractors, who pay into the state's workers' compensation fund, are immune from lawsuits.

The oil companies are not, and until about a decade ago, Wyoming courts routinely held that owners who maintained control over their work site owed a "duty of reasonable care" to their contractors' employees.

Despite a 1986 state Supreme Court ruling to that effect, the courts in recent years began applying a new standard: To make a case, an injured worker had to prove that the operator maintained "pervasive" control over the site. Few, if any, workers have succeeded.

Yet, roughnecks say that oil and gas companies exert significant control over their sites -- and therefore should be liable for unsafe practices.

"But nobody is accountable for these injuries or deaths. The only person who pays is the injured party -- he pays with his limbs or life," Vincent said.

It's a disturbing state of affairs.