If there’s not an abrupt change of course in Wyoming’s rate of workplace fatalities, the Cowboy State is on track to lose 36 workers to on-the-job deaths this year. They will leave behind wives, husbands, daughters, sons, parents and friends — the type of tragedy that devastates families. Wyoming’s working families have lived with this reality for more than a decade while state lawmakers consistently resist more safety enforcement and stiffer penalties.
This year, Gov. Matt Mead and Wyoming lawmakers again rejected those calls from worker advocates. Instead, they have doubled down on a strategy that, for a decade, doesn’t appear to have improved Wyoming’s workplace fatality rate — consistently the worst or close to the worst fatality rate in the nation. Rather than add teeth — enforcement and liability — Wyoming is offering up more voluntary “courtesy inspections” and a new pot of grant money to employers who want to create or improve their own safety programs.