December 28, 2015 — Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Groundfishermen in the Northeast are 37 times more likely to die on the job than police officers, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics. They are 171 times more likely to die on the job than that average American worker.
As Massachusetts lawmakers noted in a joint letter to the president earlier this year, “If our school teachers died on the job at the same rate as our fishermen in Massachusetts, we would lose 400 public school teachers each year.”
Because there is no controlling the open ocean and offshore weather is difficult to impossible to consistently predict, fishing will always carry an element of danger.
It can, however, be safer. Only 10 percent of New England’s offshore fishermen have been through safety training. Raising that percentage will save lives.
Congress decided as much in 2010, when it passed the Coast Guard Authorization Act, which among other things required additional safety and survival training for those operating commercial fishing boats more than 3 nautical miles from shore.
The act established two competitive grant programs to help pay for the needed training; $3 million was to be set aside for fishing safety training, with another $3 million for fishing safety research grant programs and safety equipment.
Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Daily Times
