Several examples drawn from OSHA's experience will illustrate how several of our more recent rules have been modified to meet the unique needs of small employers. Instead, these small employers are allowed merely to tell their workers verbally how to get out in an emergency. These facilities are allowed to perform a daily visual inspection of grain dust accumulations instead of using physical monitoring equipment like motion detectors. As we examine the potential impact of our rules on small firms, however, we cannot forget that a safe and healthful work environment is just as important for employees working in small firms as they are for those working in large firms. In the area of occupational safety and health, for example, workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths are not confined to certain industrial sectors or to firms of certain sizes.
Fatalities occur in small workplaces as well as the larger ones.
In fact, according to data collected by OSHA, businesses with fewer than ten workers account for 40 percent of all fatalities even though they make up only 15 percent of employment. Small mines make up only 14 percent of coal mine employment. Thus, while small businesses often seek exemption from protective regulations, their employees unfortunately have no such exemption from workplace tragedies. Just last week, an employee of a small 20-employee wood framing contract firm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, lost his life. The worker was installing roof decking on a project and slipped off the roof and fell over 30 feet to the ground.