Joe Register (bottom center), of Early, Texas, watches with others as a rappelling drill is demonstrated down a wall during a fall-prevention safety drill and training session at Iron Workers Local 263 in Arlington, Texas Saturday August 9, 2014. (Andy Jacobsohn/The Dallas Morning News)

Texas leaders crowed Friday about the state’s latest job-growth statistics. “The Texas economic engine is strong,” Workforce Commission Chairman Andres Alcantar said.

But growth isn’t the whole story.

More workers die here than in any other state. On average, a Texas worker is 12 percent more likely to be killed on the job than someone doing the same job elsewhere, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of federal data.

That translates to about 580 excess workplace deaths over a decade.

Construction has contributed mightily to Texas’ booming economy. And the state’s construction sites are 22 percent deadlier than the national average.

Forty percent of Texas’ excess death toll was among roofers, electricians and others in specialty construction trades. Such workers are sometimes treated as independent contractors, leaving them responsible for their own safety equipment and training. Many are undocumented immigrants.

Government and industry here have invested relatively little in safety equipment, training and inspections, researchers say. And Texas is one of the toughest places to organize unions, which can promote safety.

“There’s a Wild West culture here,” said University of Texas law professor Thomas McGarity, who has written several books about regulation. Texans often think, “We don’t want some nanny state telling workers how to work and, by implication, telling employers how to manage the workplace,” he said.

The Texas construction industry flourishes in the state’s business-friendly climate, Gov. Rick Perry has said.

“Let free enterprise reign, and be wary of overregulation,” he declared in a 2009 speech at the Central Texas Construction Expo. “All that regulation adds to your overhead, and you can’t operate at a profit.”

Asked to comment on The News’ findings, the governor’s press secretary said Friday that “Texas takes the safety of employees very seriously.” She offered a list of resources available to Texas employers and employees, including safety training sessions, workplace hazard assessments, a 24-hour safety hotline and Occupational Safety and Health Administration compliance consultations.

Deadly work Texas workers suffered nearly 580 more deaths across ten years than would be expected in the state based on the national average fatality rate for each industry and the number of people working in those jobs in Texas. Touch a bar for more info Industry Deaths Analysis and Findings California has a significantly larger workforce than Texas and yet fewer workplace deaths. Is that just because of the jobs people have — because Silicon Valley software engineers, for example, face less danger than West Texas wildcatters? No. To compare states, The News analyzed federal workplace data from 2003 to 2012, the most recent available years. The goal was to see how many deaths would be expected in each industry based on the number of workers and the national fatality rate. Epidemiologists frequently use this technique. Among The News’ findings: Texas had 4,593 deaths; the expected toll was 4,014.

California had 1,204 fewer deaths than expected.

Texas had the highest rate of excess deaths among the 10 biggest states.

There were 17 states with higher rates of excess deaths. But all of them had fewer than one-fourth of Texas’ workplace deaths, which statistically skews the comparison.

While oil and gas drilling is among the most dangerous industries in the U.S., Texas’ fatality rate in that industry was 62 percent below average. There were 49 fewer deaths than expected.

The most excess deaths in Texas were among specialty construction trades. There were 719 such fatalities, or 242 beyond what would have been expected. Deadly storm In several construction trades, Texas had the nation’s worst fatality rate. Falling was the most common cause of death. Nearly 300 specialty trade workers fell to their deaths here across the 10 years of the analysis. Two of them were Terry Weaver and Thomas Fairbrother Jr. In July 2012, they were working on a tower crane that needed to be dismantled at the University of Texas at Dallas.

A summer storm blew in, bringing wind gusts over 40 mph. As managers began checking weather information, metal screeched and workers screamed. The crane’s 150-foot mast toppled onto the half-built arts and technology building.

In late 2012, federal regulators issued six citations against crane owner Harrison Crane and Hoist Inc., a Pennsylvania-based subcontractor. OSHA said the company failed to address the wind speeds, failed to ensure that the disassembly process was safe and failed to train employees properly. It proposed nearly $30,000 in fines but has cut the amount in half.

Weaver’s and Fairbrother’s survivors sued Harrison Crane and the general contractor, Indiana-based Hunt Construction Group Inc. A tentative out-of-court settlement has been reached, court records say. Neither company would comment for this story.

Unlike Weaver and Fairbrother, many Texas construction workers are treated as independent contractors instead of employees. So there’s no minimum hourly wage, no overtime, no compensation for on-the-job injuries, no required safety training or equipment. Yet they’re treated as if they’re employees — for example, by being given a strict work schedule.

General contractors increasingly are hiring subcontractors who follow this business model, said Raymond Risk, president and CEO of the Texas Construction Association. The association’s members are commercial subcontractors.

“If you’re talking about a job that has $1 million in payroll, then you’re talking about a minimum of $85,000 to $100,000 in savings on payroll taxes” by hiring independent contractors, Risk said. “That will sway a bid for a general contractor.”

A Texas general contractor’s obligation to follow payroll and safety rules often ends with the first-tier subcontractors. “There isn’t a big incentive of penalty for the general contractor to look below that level,” Risk said.

A 2013 report by the Workers Defense Project, an Austin-based advocacy group, estimated that 41 percent of construction workers in Texas are improperly treated as independent contractors.

A state law passed in the last legislative session allows a fine of $200 for each misclassified worker found at a publicly funded project. The Texas Workforce Commission says it has issued one fine under the new law.

In Illinois, a similar law also covers construction companies working on private projects. A roofing contractor there was fined $1.6 million for having 10 misclassified workers.

“Now that’s a deterrent,” said Mike Cunningham, executive director of a labor union association called Texas Building Trades.

Stan Marek, who heads a Houston-based subcontracting company, said it would be difficult to fix the misclassification problem without addressing immigration-related issues. By hiring workers as non-employees, subcontractors generally can avoid verifying their immigration status for income tax forms. Or they can illegally pay them cash under the table.

No one knows exactly how many unauthorized immigrants work in Texas construction jobs. A University of Texas study puts the figure at up to 50 percent.

California has about 50 percent more unauthorized immigrants than Texas and about one-third more construction specialty trade workers. But Texas has two-thirds more deaths among those workers.

Isidro Salas, of Dallas, rappels down a wall during safety training at Iron Workers Local 263 in Arlington, Texas Saturday August 9, 2014. (Andy Jacobsohn/The Dallas Morning News)

Union safety course

On a Saturday morning, 35 ironworkers are gathered at the Local 263 union hall in Arlington. Safety instructor Robert Cothren projects construction-site photos on a cinderblock wall and asks his trainees to yell out what’s wrong.

“No safety lanyard!” someone yells. “Those scaffolds won’t pass code!” someone else follows.

Ironworkers erect the steel skeletons of large buildings. Because their job is often worked hundreds of feet off the ground, they like to call themselves “sky cowboys.”

To qualify for a full journeyman’s wage — $23 an hour in Texas — ironworkers have to complete this 30-hour safety course designed by OSHA. It’s a condition of their collective bargaining agreement.

Cothren, who’s 63, has been an ironworker for nearly four decades. Besides teaching in the evenings and weekends, he works eight-hour shifts on job sites, watching over apprentices.

“My favorite part is when I get a call from a contractor or a job site superintendent who says, ‘Send me five more just like the last ones,’” Cothren said.

Texas is a right-to-work state. That means workers aren’t required to join a union if one exists for their shop. Texas has the sixth-lowest rate of union membership in the country.

The News’ analysis found that states with weaker labor unions tended to have a higher fatality rate. Long-term academic research that studied other factors has come to similar conclusions.

Right-to-Work The News compared each state's total expected deaths across all industries to each state's actual death total. States where deaths exceeded expectation tended to be "right-to-work" states. View Rates

Celeste Monforton, a George Washington University occupational health lecturer and former policy adviser for the U.S. Mining Safety and Health Administration, said unionized workers can speak up about unsafe work conditions without fear of losing their jobs.

Duke University occupational epidemiologist Hester Lipscomb said that in the wake of the recession, even union workers may accept unsafe conditions. “If it’s that way in a union environment, it’s worse in a non-union environment,” Lipscomb said.

No state oversight

Texas, like 25 other states, has no occupational safety inspection agency. Such work is left to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

But its resources are sorely overtaxed.

“Think back to the West Fertilizer plant,” Monforton said, a reference to the Central Texas facility that exploded last year after not being inspected since the mid-1980s.

Monforton, who once worked for OSHA, said its mandate vastly exceeds its resources.

From 2003 through 2012, OSHA investigated 1,723 workplace deaths in Texas. But there were more than twice as many deaths on the job during the same period.

The agency’s mandate does not include investigating independent contractor deaths, said OSHA spokeswoman Diana Petterson.

OSHA allows states to create their own occupational safety and health agencies if they can show that would be at least as effective as federal enforcement. But a 2010 inspector general’s report noted that OSHA has yet to devise methods to determine if a state is meeting that requirement.

“Plus, having a state OSHA removes you from federal oversight to a large extent,” Lipscomb said. “So the assumption that having a state plan would be better is certainly a far-reaching one.”

Governor Rick Perry responds In response to the The News' findings, the governor's press secretary issued the following statement: Texas takes the safety of employees very seriously, and the state has a number of services and incentives in place to encourage safe workplaces. Through the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC), Texas offers many free and low-cost workplace safety and health services and resources to all Texas employers and employees, regardless of whether the employer has workers’ compensation insurance, including regional and statewide safety training seminars and conferences, on-site safety training to employers, workplace hazard assessments, 24-hour safety hotline, and OSHA compliance assistance consultations. In Texas, the federal government has the primary responsibility for enforcing workplace safety through OSHA and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). The State of Texas’ role is to promote safe and healthy workplaces through educational outreach, employer/employee incentives and regulation of insurance companies’ accident prevention services that are required to be provided to their policyholders. Employers with workers’ compensation insurance coverage have incentives to provide safe workplaces through their workers’ compensation premiums. Employers with poor safety records experience higher premiums through their experience modifiers. Many insurance companies also offer additional premium credits to employers who provide safety committees or formal safety programs. A post on the website of the office of Governor Rick Perry about the jobs picture in Texas (screenshot taken Aug. 15, 2014, 3:00 p.m.)

Staff writers Jon McClure and Daniel Lathrop contributed to this report | Interactive graphics by Jon McClure