Feds Find Kentucky Fails To Meet Standards For Worker Safety
From NPR
Kentucky is one of 28 states that OSHA has granted permission to run their own worker safety programs. Every year, federal OSHA conducts an audit of all the state plans to ensure they are "at least as effective" as the federal agency at identifying and preventing workplace hazards.
This year, they’ve found that Kentucky is not meeting that standard, and Lisa Hobbs agrees.
In December 2016, Lisa’s husband, Pius “Gene” Hobbs, was raking gravel with the Meade County public works crew when a dump truck backed over him. On the loud worksite, Hobbs couldn’t hear the backup beeper and was crushed to death.
More than a year later, Lisa still worried about the truck endangering others, and she had reason to feel that way—the crew’s truck beeper was gone.
Listen to this special NPR report about the state of Kentucky’s failing worker safety program and how they had to investigate 44 deaths within a two-year period.
