Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — Seventy-seven Mississippians died on the job in 2015, statistics from the most recent year available from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show. Advocates for workers' rights, including the Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights and the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, gathered at the Mississippi Capitol on Friday, April 28, to honor those who died on the job and organize for reforms in the state.

Mississippi has the fourth-highest fatal-injury rate in the country, and the majority of fatal occupational injuries in 2015 occurred in the private sector. Mississippi is one of nine states that does not record nonfatal occupational injury data, which the majority of states do although it is not required.

Bill Chandler, the executive director at MIRA, attributes the high rate to poor working conditions coupled with the lack of a state occupational health, safety or labor agency.

Lawmakers amended the state's workers compensation policies back in 2012 in what some called "the biggest vote for business." The changes shifted power to employers, particularly to administer drug and alcohol testing. Mississippi law gives employers the right to administer drug and alcohol tests to employees who sustain or assert work-related injuries. If a test comes back positive, "it shall be presumed that the proximate cause of the injury was the use a drug illegally ... or the intoxication due to the use of alcohol."

Advocates say that these changes only benefited corporations, not the Mississippi workers. Chandler said the state's workers' compensation for permanent disability due to work-related injuries lasts only 450 weeks, or about eight and a half years. He says that is not enough money for people who likely will not be able to work the rest of their lives. Chandler added that injured workers can receive federal tax dollars in the form of social security or disability after the state benefits run out.

"All of us pay for it through our federal taxes and Social Security insurance and so on," Chandler said. "The majority of states have workers' compensation benefits that are available to the injured workers, so if you can't work for the rest of your life with partial-disability (you receive lifelong financial assistance) ... but not Mississippi—we limit it."

Democrats have repeatedly introduced legislation to amend the 2012 reforms, but no bill that works to remove some of Mississippi's capped workers' compensation laws gets out of committee in the Republican-controlled Legislature. Workers' rights advocates want lawmakers to eliminate the time-cap on disability payments, ensure medical benefits are paid regardless of the number of days missed, and remove certain caps in state law that allow only certain numbers of weeks of leave depending on the injury or limb affected by the injury.

Email state reporter Arielle Dreher at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @arielle_amara.