A new report from the Minnesota area's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) indicates that the construction industry is still incredibly dangerous to workers -- despite all the safety regulations that are supposed to be in force.

The report indicates that there have been 34 deaths due to workplace accidents in the year prior to Sept. 30, 2019. A total of 38% of those deaths were in the construction industry.

Whether you call it a slaughterhouse or a meat-processing plant, working in the meat-packing industry is difficult, backbreaking and dangerous. It's also getting worse.

Increased efficiency often comes at the expense of worker safety. In most meat-packing plants, increased efficiency translates into a push to keep the line going at all costs and -- whenever possible -- move it along even faster. Speed may be an essential part of the job, but speed is also the enemy of safety.

Getting injured on the job opens up a whole slew of questions -- most of them anxiety-provoking. How long are you going to be off work? How will you pay your bills? How will you afford your medical care? What happens if you can't go back to your job?

It helps to understand as much as you can about the workers' compensation system in Minnesota. Here are some of the wage-replacement benefits typically available to injured workers:

Your hands are important to your ability to make a living -- but your hands are also constantly in danger when you work construction, in a factory, in the heating and cooling industry or any other profession where you can easily end up with a crushing injury or an amputation of your fingers or hand.

Hand injuries are, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the second-most common type of injury in the workplace. (Back injuries are the most common.) They account for 23% of all workplace injuries and are -- above all other kinds of accidents -- the most preventable.