The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reported today it has sent letters to about 15,000 workplaces--including 1,000 Lowe's and Home Depots plus nearly 350 pro-oriented LBM operations--telling them their injury and illness rates are considerably higher than the national average.

The workplaces cited have the highest numbers of injuries and illnesses resulting in days away from work, restricted work activities or job transfers, known as the DART rate. “Receipt of this letter means that workers in that particular establishment are being injured at a higher rate than in most other businesses of its kind in the country,” said David Michaels, assistant secretary of Labor for OSHA.  “Employers whose businesses have injury and illness rates this high need to take immediate steps to protect their workers.”

Employers receiving the letters also were provided copies of their injury and illness data, along with a list of the most frequently cited OSHA standards for their specific industry, OSHA said.

The 15,000 companies notified were drawn from a 2009 survey of about 100,000 worksites nationwide in which companies provided injury and illness data for 2008. Workplaces had to have DART rates more than twice the national average among all U.S. workplaces in order to get the letter.

The map and spreadsheet below list the companies notified by OSHA that have LBM-related industry codes. Because of the downloading time required and the software being used, it's possible the map might miss some locations on the spreadsheet. (Click here to download the LBM-specific spreadsheet below and here to download OSHA's entire database.)

Here is the spreadsheet showing who got notices. It can be sorted by company name or by state and city. Click here to get the spreadsheet on a web page.