Some Prominent Names From the List

1-800-FLOWERS • Airborne Express • American Airlines • Coca-Cola • Caterpillar • Chiquita • Continental Airlines • Coors • Dillards • Domino's Pizza • El Al • FedEx • Ford • Frito-Lay • GE • Goodyear • HarperCollins • HCA • Honda • K Mart • Kraft • Kroger • La-Z Boy • Levi Strauss • Lowes • McGraw-Hill • Michelin • Mitsubishi • Nabisco • Nestle • New York Times • Nissan • Northrop Grumman • Northwest Airlines • Oneida • Pepsi-Cola • Philips • Pier 1 • Pillsbury • Publix • Purina Mills • Sara Lee • Sealy • Sears • Sherwin-Williams • Southwest Airlines • Target • TRW • TWA • Tyco • Tyson Foods • United Airlines • UPS • US Postal Service • Wal-Mart

Note: Although the headquarters of some of the above-named companies are on the list, in other cases only specific divisions, stores, plants, or other outlying locations are listed.

>>> The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has quietly released its injury-illness hall of shame. The announcement on their website says:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has identified and sent letters to almost 13,000 workplaces with the highest occupational injury and illness rates and is urging the employers to take action to remove hazards causing the high rates.

The employers are those whose establishments are covered by Federal OSHA and reported the highest "Days Away from work, Restricted work or job Transfer injury and illness" (DART) rate to OSHA in a survey of 2002 injury and illness data. For every 100 full-time workers, the 13,000 employers had seven or more injuries or illnesses which resulted in days Away from work, restricted work or job transfer. The national average is 2.8.

Because of a FOIA lawsuit by the New York Times, a federal judge has ruled that OSHA must release the names and injury rates of all the companies. Apparently as a preemptive move, in February OSHA posted a list of the companies but not their injury rates. Not good enough, said the court. The agency has 60 days to appeal the FOIA ruling.

While also getting the injury rates would be fantastic, the release of the companies' names is itself a coup that has been almost entirely overlooked. Below you'll find the list presented in several formats.

OSHA List of 13,000 Workplaces With the Highest Occupational Injury and Illness Rates

HTML {4.3 megs!}

Micrsoft Excel {2.1 megs}

comma-delimited text {940K}

dBASE [zipped] {385K}

A caveat about the list from the Associated Press: "The list only includes states covered by the federal OSHA, and not those 21 states that operate their own government-approved efforts."

Related Associated Press Article

Judge: OSHA Must Disclose Injury Rates

Tue Aug 3, 5:59 PM ET

By LEIGH STROPE, AP Labor Writer

WASHINGTON - The government must disclose the names of companies with the worst safety records along with their injury rates, a federal judge has ruled.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a Labor Department agency, had denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2002 by The New York Times. The newspaper was seeking a list of the 13,000 companies that OSHA had identified as having injury and illness rates greater than the national average as well as their scores, essentially providing a ranking of the most hazardous work places in America.

Last week's ruling in U.S. District Court for the Southern District in New York ordered OSHA to provide the information for the year 2002.

"We're reviewing the decision and our options to determine what approach best advances the department's mission of protecting workers," Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank said Tuesday.

OSHA, represented by the Justice Department, has 60 days to decide whether to appeal.

The agency had argued the data was confidential because competitors would be able to determine, based on the injury rates, how many hours employees worked at certain companies. Hours worked and number of incidents causing lost workdays are used to calculate the rate.

OSHA sent letters to the 13,000 employers notifying them that their rates were significantly elevated and encouraging them to reduce injuries. The government contended those companies and their addresses were available on OSHA's Web site, and the newspaper could contact them to ask for their injury rates.

Judge Shira A. Scheindlin rejected that argument.

"The court's clerks expended considerable time searching OSHA's Web site for these names and addresses, but were unable to locate them," Scheindlin wrote in the ruling. "This is likely because OSHA's Web site is extraordinarily difficult to navigate."

OSHA, in a February news release, said the 13,000 work sites are listed alphabetically by state at http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/foia/hot_10.html. The list only includes states covered by the federal OSHA, and not those 21 states that operate their own government-approved efforts.

The Labor Department, in denying The Times' request for injury rates, said it would have to get permission from all 13,000 employers before releasing the data. That would be too burdensome because it would require 30,290 staff hours, or about 15 years to respond, it said.

The ruling harshly criticized the Labor Department, at times calling its arguments misplaced, illogical, puzzling and especially troubling.

But the government said the newspaper did not "exhaust its administrative remedies" in negotiating with the department for the information before filing suit. The judge disagreed and noted that the department's response to an appeal by the Times was seven months late.

The Times won a Pulitzer Prize this year for two three-part series by David Barstow and Lowell Bergman that investigated workplace deaths and the "culture of bureaucratic reluctance" at OSHA.

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