I guess it is nice that Washington can let Alaska count the Alaskan fishermen deaths for them--even though probably half of them live and dock their ships in Washington.

@2 beat me to it.

@2, good point. I'll also bet our numbers didn't look so good back when we still had lots of lumberjacks. But we have lots of ultra-high-tech airplane makers and not too many barefoot chicken dismemberers or or unlicensed industrial paint shops.

@4

Not sure I see the point. Still, thanks L&I, for shutting down unlicensed paint shops.

@2

Also, if you added all of Alaska's 39 deaths to Washington's 60, our rate would go from 1.9 to 2.8 per 100,000 workers, which would push or ranking from 3rd to 14th. But since only 30% of Alaska's deaths are in the fishing industry, you're only talking about adding maybe 4 deaths to Washington's 60, it doesn't change the rate or the ranking at all.

It's because Alaska's population is one tenth of Washington that comparisons of the two are so lopsided.

@5

Er, not 4, but 12. But even then it doesn't change much. Also, if you are giving Alaska's deaths to Washington, do you add the population divisor too? And do you subtract migrant farm workers who don't live in Washington?

Seems to me you should let Alaska regulate what goes down in their jurisdiction and let Washington regulate what happens in Washington. Otherwise migrant workers aren't our problem and that seems crazy.

It's hard to get killed writing code. Although I'd make an exception in the case of the developers of Lync 2013.

@4 There weren't any lumberjacks in Washington; they were/ are loggers. You are correct about the danger. In the sixties the logging companies paid almost as much per hour for insurance as they did for wages.

A number of years ago my husband got a $45K from L&I to provide 6 days of arborist training to ~45 Washington arborists. (Being an arborist is a really good way to be injured on the job, especially of you're a yahoo who doesn't know what you are doing.) On one of the days, two guys from L&I showed up unannounced to make sure there really was some training going on and to make sure the training was actually good. I was impressed with L&I, both for providing the dough and for checking up.

Argh! He got a $45K GRANT from L&I.