Does safety pay?

An article provides information about the relationships between organization efficiency, as measured by profitability, and employee work injuries. It is based on a study of 140 Texas chemical, paper and wood products manufacturers. The study concludes that the more-profitable capital-intensive firms (process chemical companies) most effectively protect their employees from work injuries, while the more-profitable labor-intensive firms (wood product manufacturers) protect their workers less effectively. Paper product manufacturers that are less-capital-intensive than chemical firms (yet more labor-intensive than wood product firms) have small disincentives to protect their workers. Therefore, according to this study, it pays to protect valued workers (those in chemical industries) and does not pay to protect less-valued workers (those in labor-intensive wood product industries); employee protection is a slight disincentive in paper product manufacturing.