BLS DAILY REPORT, Wednesday, AUGUST 7, 1996: Only truck drivers and common laborers suffer more on-the-job injuries than nursing home workers do, says The New York Times (page D1). That is why OSHA, entering a widening rift between nursing homes and their workers, will announce this week a campaign aimed at reducing injuries and relieving the industry of its dubious distinction. Says The Times: "According to BLS, nursing home workers suffered more than 221,000 nonfatal occupational injuries in 1994, the most recent year for which data are available -- about 16.8 injuries per 100 workers. That ranked the industry as more dangerous than mining, construction, electrical work and automobile repair. While back injuries from lifting patients are the most common threat, nursing aides and orderlies must also guard against infectious agents, such as those that cause tuberculosis, hepatitis and AIDS, as well as fend off violent and combative patients." Taking on worker safety in nursing homes represents a changing role for OSHA, which has been chided in the past for focusing on safety problems in manufacturing rather than in service industries, says The Times. Discrimination may be widening the gap between the average wages of black and white males, according to a new study (The Wall Street Journal feature "Business & Race," page B1). Results published this month in the American Sociological Review, University of Cincinnati and written by sociologist David Maume, Jr., found the gap in hourly wages between the two groups widened from $2.48 in 1976 to $2.66 in 1985, in constant dollars. Of these figures, Dr. Maume estimated that discrimination was responsible for 19 percent of the 1976 gap and 26 percent of the 1985 gap, after factoring out variables such as education, training, and experience. The percentage of blacks in professional and managerial jobs rose sharply in the 1980's, but the compensation for white males in these categories rose faster, says The Journal. But University of Texas sociologist George Farkas says Dr. Maume failed to control a key qualification -- cognitive skills, mathematical and verbal abilities as measured in standardized tests. When differences in cognitive skills are factored in, he says, the wage gap disappears.
