Minnesota workers may be employed at companies that lack consistent standards for safety and health data collecting and reporting. The Center for Safety and Health Sustainability is an international organization made up of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Society of Safety Engineers, the United Kingdom’s Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering. It released a report in 2013 that examined the companies in the Corporate Knights’ Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations that found that the companies lacked consistency in tracking and reporting on safety and health. Its followup report released in 2017 said that there had been little change since then.
The CSHS looked at data from June to December of 2016 to reach its conclusions. It identified a number of issues including variation in definitions and terms, varied methodology in data collection, and different reporting formats. All of these variations mean that there is no consensus about metrics for safety and health that can be part of a global sustainability index.
The organization had recommendations for improving consensus. Among them was having companies gather data about safety and health throughout their supply chains. One company that reported no fatalities actually had 27 supply chain fatalities. Another recommendation was that companies keep track of which of their work sites had implemented safety and health management systems and third party auditing.
When an employee suffers workplace injuries or becomes ill because of a workplace exposure, that employee might be eligible for workers’ compensation. Injured workers might want to talk to an attorney about their rights since employers sometimes discourage them from filing. An attorney might be able to help an employee file a claim and appeal a denial if necessary.