Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 8, 1993                   TAG: 9309080051
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PROGRAM LOOKS TO REDUCE INJURIES IN SMALL BUSINESS

State Commissioner of Labor and Industry Carol Amato said Tuesday in Roanoke County that she intends to do something about that record.

Speaking to the Blue Ridge Region Economic Development Commission, Amato outlined plans for a pilot program aimed at curbing the accident rate of the state's small companies. After she was through, she received the commission's endorsement.

Amato's program would pair large businesses that have well-established safety programs and good safety records with small outfits needing help to improve their accident rates and training programs.

The program - to be called the Blue Ridge Safety Network - would begin this fall in the Western Virginia counties of the Blue Ridge region and continue through the winter of 1995, Amato said.

Amato said she chose Western Virginia to test the program because it has big businesses with excellent safety programs, good relationships among communities and good examples of business and government cooperation.

The region also has a worker fatality rate more than four times higher than the state average.

In 1992, one Virginia worker in every 18,000 was killed on the job. But in the Blue Ridge region one in every 4,000 was killed in an on-the-job incident, Amato said.

Statistics also show that 90 percent of workplace fatalities occur in businesses with fewer than 200 employees and more than half in businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

In the region, $45.8 million was paid out in worker compensation claims last year, Amato said. The region had 14.8 percent of the state's claims but 13.3 percent of the state's workers, she said.

The State Corporation Commission is considering an increase in worker compensation premiums of 15 percent.

Amato said she got the idea for the safety partnership program after talking with operators of small businesses and seeing how overwhelmed they were keeping up with state and federal regulations.

The training assistance proposed by Amato would supplement the state's safety training program.

The state occupational safety and health agency spends only $1 out of every $6 on safety training, with the rest going to inspections and enforcement of workplace safety and health laws.

Industries that have injury rates in excess of 10 per 100 full-time workers will be targeted first, Amato said. Those include all construction industries and manufacturing in areas including metal, food, rubber, stone, furniture, lumber and industrial machinery products.

The goal of the project is to reduce the cost of doing business in the region while increasing workplace safety, Amato said.