The number of North Carolinians who died at work in 2012 is likely more than three times the original number reported by the state Labor Department. While the state estimated 35 worker fatalities last year, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) put the number at 150.

Released in the wake of the deadly Texas fertilizer plant explosion enabled by massive regulatory failure on the state and federal levels, COSH’s report holds North Carolina’s weak workplace regulations accountable for these 150 deaths. While the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration covers workplace safety in about half the states, North Carolina uses a far more lenient state program.

In one of the highlighted cases, 39-year-old Luis Martinez died in a trench cave-in while installing a water line at NC State University. The trench cave-in could have been prevented with the use of proper equipment like a trench box that supports the sides. Yet the state essentially ignored repeated violations by Martinez’s employer for years before his death:

• August 22, 2007: As part of a planned inspection, NC OSHA finds that J.F. Wilkerson has violated trench safety standards and assesses a fine of $1,175. But the penalty is reduced to zero as part of an “informal settlement” with the company.

• November 14, 2007: After a worker files a complaint of unsafe conditions on the company’s jobsite, NC OSHA investigates and finds five serious violations. The company is fined $7,920 but the penalty is reduced to a paltry $1,820.

• February 23, 2011: Another worker files a complaint of unsafe conditions on a J.F. Wilkerson jobsite. NC OSHA inspects but does not cite the company for any violations.

• November 19, 2012: Unsafe conditions persist at the worksite and Luis Martinez is killed. NC OSHA’s investigation is still in process.

NC OSHA’s fines for companies that violate workplace safety standards are far lower than federal penalties. Repeat offenders pay just $1,906 in North Carolina, while they would pay $7,487 in a state covered by federal OSHA.

While the federal agency’s protections are generally stronger than state programs, so-called “pro-business” lawmakers have worked hard to hobble OSHA. The agency is already desperately underfunded and so over-extended that many workplaces have avoided inspection for nearly a century. As sequestration cuts are implemented, OSHA will lose another $564.8 million and will likely cut 1,200 workplace inspections.

Even without budget cuts, OSHA’s existing protections have already fallen short. COSH also released a national report on worker fatalities estimating that 13 Americans die at work every day, while countless others contract serious illnesses from exposure to harmful chemicals or excessive heat. Immigrant workers have the highest rate of deaths, as employers routinely threaten them with deportation if they speak out against the dangerous conditions. However, the Texas fertilizer plant explosion seems to have served as a wake-up call for many Americans. A majority now support tougher enforcement of existing regulations, while 44 percent believe current workplace safety regulations are not strict enough.

The recently reintroduced Protecting America’s Workers Act is one attempt to remedy the dangerously wide loopholes in existing workplace safety standards. The bill would bolster OSHA’s reporting, inspection and enforcement practices, expand federal protections to state, county, municipal and U.S. government employees, and increase whistleblower protections.

The New York Times reported today that Walmart is spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours fighting a $7,000 fine assessed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) after a Walmart employee was trampled to death by a crowd at a store on Long Island.

Though the company has taken steps to address the problems that led to the unfortunate incident, it is continuing to resist the fine because it feels that “the government is improperly trying to define ‘crowd trampling’ as an occupational hazard that retailers must take action to prevent”:

Wal-Mart’s all-out battle against the relatively minor penalty has mystified and even angered some federal officials. In contesting the penalty, Wal-Mart has filed 20 motions and responses totaling nearly 400 pages and has spent at least $2 million on legal fees, according to OSHA’s calculations. The dispute has become so heated — and Wal-Mart’s defense so vigorous — that officials at OSHA, an arm of the Labor Department, complain that they have had to devote huge numbers of staff time to the case, including 4,725 hours of work by employees in the legal office.

“OSHA wants to hold Wal-Mart accountable for a standard that was neither proposed nor issued at the time of the incident,” said David Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “The citation has far-reaching implications for the retail industry that could subject retailers to unfairly harsh penalties and restrictions on future sales promotions.”

I’d like to think that a regulation along the lines of “don’t let crowds run through your store and trample your employees to death” would be fairly uncontroversial. But Walmart’s resistance is part and parcel of a Big Business culture that abhors common sense safety regulations.

For instance, Massey Energy, which owns the Upper Big Branch mine that exploded in April, killing dozens of miners, was part of “a surge in the number of challenges to mine safety citations [that] has clogged a federal appeals process, allowing 32 coal mines to avoid tougher enforcement measures.” And BP, the company that had a well explode and kill 11 workers, “spent years battling federal regulators over how many layers of safeguards would be needed” at such wells.

Safety regulations are put in place to, among many things, protect workers from the sort of corner-cutting that makes a company’s bottom line look better. And in BP’s case, the environment, as well as workers engaged in the clean-up, are now also at risk. In light of such disasters, it’d be nice if every proposed regulation weren’t treated as an assault on capitalism itself by the Big Business community (though I’m not holding my breath).