BLS Reports 17% Hike in Workplace Deaths; State Points to Rosier Figure

If you read the federal government's press release, workplace fatalities in North Carolina shot up 17% in 2014, to 128 compared to 109 the year before. But the North Carolina Department of Labor focused on a different figure in a press release issued Jan. 22, reporting that workplace deaths actually declined about 10%, to 41 from 45. "The state figures exclude traffic accidents, which account for nearly half of all work-related deaths, as well as homicides and suicides that are investigated by law enforcement agencies, and fatalities investigated by federal OSHA and other exemptions...