Texas' most dangerous employers by incidents of severe injuries

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, tracks on the job injuries and records their severity. A recent report in the San Antonio news reflected this information for the last few years and found several notable employers with frequent severe injuries.

The time period involved was 2015-2018.

More than 6,000 Texas employees reported severe injuries at work between Jan. 1, 2015 and June 1, 2018, according to records from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Since 2015, OSHA mandates that employers report "all severe work-related injuries, defined as an amputation, in-patient hospitalization, or loss of an eye."

Not surprisingly, high risk occupations like oilfield services are among the most dangerous places to work, with employers like Halliburton, Helmerich & Payne, and Key Energy listed.

Walmart reported the most severe injuries during that time period, with 116. Of course, one cannot draw too specific a conclusion about whether an employer's workplace is more or less dangerous simply based on the volume of severe injuries, as some employers (like Walmart) simply have more employees than others. An employer with 100,000 employees should, all things being equal, expect to have more injuries than an employer with 10,000 employees.

Still, Walmart is a retailer, and it is notable that its volume of injuries seems to outpace what one would expect given its relative size. Walmart has about 179000 Texas employees and has 116 severe injuries over the period (1/1/15-6/1/18). HEB has (or had, in 2017) about 100,000 employees and had 34 severe injuries over the same time frame. Walmart, on that data, appears to be a more dangerous place to work than HEB. 

Notably, Walmart and HEB, like other retailers, in recent years went to a nonsubscriber model which means that employees could sue them for negligence but could not collect state-regulated workers compensation payments and benefits. The premier provider of nonsubscriber policies written under federal ERISA guidelines is Partnersource.