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.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times >>

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