{"id":269861,"date":"2026-04-28T15:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/269861\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T15:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:10:09","slug":"report-texas-workers-safety-health-in-danger-under-trump-abbott-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/269861\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT: Texas Workers\u2019 Safety & Health in Danger Under Trump, Abbott Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXAS \u2013 Today, on Workers Memorial Day, Texas workers are dying and being injured on the job after\u00a0Donald Trump and\u00a0Greg Abbott cut essential funding and staffing, directed resources away from agencies, and preempted policies that protect workers, according to a\u00a0new report by the AFL-CIO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single family deserves to know that their loved ones will come home from work at the end of the day \u2014 safe and\u00a0alive,\u201d\u00a0said Texas AFL-CIO President Leonard Aguilar. \u201cThis Workers Memorial Day, we remember those Texans who didn\u2019t get to come home. For them and for every Texan who works for a living, we won\u2019t stop fighting for the protections we deserve: the basic dignity of a water break, an end to workplace violence, and fundamental safety precautions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ THE REPORT: \u201cDeath on the Job: The Toll of Neglect\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

KEY TEXAS FINDINGS<\/p>\n

According to the AFL-CIO\u2019s report\u00a0\u201cDeath on the Job: The Toll of Neglect\u201d<\/a>, 557 Texas workers died on the job in 2024 (pg. 45). The state\u2019s worker fatality rate is still above the national average (pg. 274).<\/p>\n

In Texas and across the country, Latino workers continue to face the greatest risk. Of the Latino workers who died on the job nationally, 68.5% were immigrants, a larger percentage than in previous years (pg. 72).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas has the fourth-worst ratio of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors to number of employees at 1\/199,091, following Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi (pg. 149). With these numbers, it would take OSHA 215 years to inspect each Texas workplace once (pg. 219).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas remains one of two states to have instituted measures that preempt their localities from issuing requirements to protect workers from heat, like mandatory breaks for water, rest and shade (pg. 163).<\/p>\n

KEY NATIONAL FINDINGSWorkplace hazards kill approximately 140,000 workers each year in the United States\u2014more than 380 workers each day.\u00a05,070 workers died from traumatic injury on the job in 2024, the latest year of data available, and an estimated 135,000 died from occupational diseases. An estimated 530 workers died from heat alone.Black workers still die on the job at a disproportionately higher rate than the national average.\u00a0Latino workers continue to face the greatest risk of dying on the job in 2024, at a rate 30% higher than the national average. Of the Latino workers who died, 68.5% were immigrants, a larger percentage than in previous years.The rate of young worker deaths has nearly doubled since 2020, and workers ages 65 and older are nearly three times as likely to die on the job than other workers.\u00a0Workplace injuries create an enormous burden on the economy, costing an estimated $177 billion to $354 billion a year.\u00a0Underreporting is widespread, and the true toll of work-related injuries and illnesses is estimated to be between 5.0 million and 7.5 million each year in private industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery worker should be able to go home safe and healthy at the end of their shift\u2014but 55 years after the founding of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, that fundamental right is in danger,\u201d\u00a0said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. \u201cFrom the dismantling of critical federal agencies and laws to the expansion of unregulated, untested AI technology, the protections that workers fought and died for are under serious threat. The labor movement refuses to go backward. More than 5 decades after a Republican signed the landmark Occupational Safety and Health Act into law, we urge all members of Congress\u2014from both sides of the aisle\u2014to join us in this fight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a disgrace that in 2026, being Black, Latino or an immigrant can still be a death sentence on the jobsite,\u201d\u00a0said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond. \u201cOur new report makes it terrifyingly clear that the Trump administration\u2019s anti-DEI, mass deportation agenda will only make this crisis worse. When workers are afraid that reporting threats to their safety could result in their work permits being revoked and their families being ripped apart, and when employers fear that reporting workplace data will hurt their bottom line, we are all less safe: workers of color and white workers, immigrant workers and U.S.-born workers. We must fight the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on communities of color like our fellow workers\u2019 lives are on the line\u2014because they are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0\u201cDeath on the Job\u201d report<\/a> comes the week of Workers Memorial Day, when the labor movement remembers those who have suffered injury or illness or lost their lives on the job and renews the fight to prevent these tragedies. The AFL-CIO, its state and local labor federations, and affiliated unions will turn out to call attention to this crisis throughout the week at events\u00a0across the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The full 2026 \u201cDeath of the Job: The Toll of Neglect\u201d report can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

The Texas AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) is the state labor federation consisting of more than 250,000 affiliated union members and advocates for working people in Texas. Learn more at\u00a0texasaflcio.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2013 Today, on Workers Memorial Day, Texas workers are dying and being injured on the job after\u00a0Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-269861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}