Posted by Schwarz & Schwarz, PC | Serving IAM Members and Injured Workers
America’s shipbuilding industry is one of the most physically demanding sectors in the entire economy. The men and women who build naval destroyers, nuclear submarines, oil tankers, and cargo vessels do work that most people never see — and face injury risks that far exceed the national average. According to NIOSH, from 2011 to 2017 alone, U.S. shipyard workers suffered more than 61,000 nonfatal injuries and illnesses and at least 45 fatalities. Fatality and injury rates in shipyards are consistently higher than the national average across all manufacturing industries.
If you work in a shipyard, those numbers are not abstract. They describe your coworkers, your friends, and possibly you.
Where America Builds Its Ships
Commercial and naval shipbuilding is concentrated in a handful of major regions across the country, each tied to the waterways and military infrastructure that make large-scale shipbuilding possible.
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Virginia is home to Newport News Shipbuilding (HII), one of the world’s largest shipyards, which produces nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for the U.S. Navy. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth handles repair and overhaul of active fleet vessels. |
Mississippi hosts Ingalls Shipbuilding (also HII) in Pascagoula, which builds destroyers, amphibious assault ships, and Coast Guard cutters. |
Connecticut is home to General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, the primary builder of U.S. nuclear submarines, including the Virginia-class and the next-generation Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. |
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Maine is home to Bath Iron Works in Bath, an IAM stronghold that has built Navy destroyers since the late 1800s. |
Washington State hosts Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, one of the Navy’s largest maintenance and repair facilities. |
Louisiana and Texas support a large commercial shipbuilding and repair sector serving the offshore energy industry, including platform supply vessels, tugboats, and tankers. |
These shipyards employ tens of thousands of skilled tradespeople. Over 165,000 people work in U.S. shipbuilding, and the overwhelming majority of them are hands-on workers — not engineers or administrators, but the trades that actually build and repair vessels.
The IAM’s Role in Shipbuilding
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has represented shipyard workers for well over a century. The IAM’s current International President, Brian Bryant, began his career as a pipefitter at Bath Iron Works and joined IAM Local S6 in 1989 — a direct line from the shop floor to union leadership that reflects how central shipbuilding is to the IAM’s identity. The IAM’s Shipbuilders Union affiliate covers workers across both commercial and naval shipyards, including contracts covering workers who build Navy support ships and oil tankers.
IAM members in shipyards hold some of the most skilled and physically demanding jobs in the entire industry:
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Welders fuse structural steel plates, hull sections, decks, and bulkheads using a range of processes and filler metals. Every joint must meet rigorous quality standards — especially on naval vessels. Welders work in all positions: flat, vertical, horizontal, and overhead. |
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Pipefitters design, fabricate, and install the complex piping systems that run throughout a ship. A nuclear-powered aircraft carrier contains more than 230 miles of pipe. A submarine contains more than 23 miles. Pipefitters work from blueprints in extremely confined spaces, bending, cutting, threading, and pressure-testing every run they install. |
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Shipfitters are often called the “carpenters of steel.” They align and position structural components — frames, floors, bulkheads, decks — before welders seal them in place. Every major structural element of a vessel passes through a shipfitter’s hands first. |
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Machinists operate precision machine tools — lathes, mills, drill presses — to fabricate the custom mechanical components that hold a ship together at the mechanical level: shaft parts, bearings, fasteners, and fittings that cannot be ordered off a shelf. |
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Boilermakers handle metal grinding, steel fabrication, tack welding, and the fitting of complex assemblies. They work across multiple disciplines and are often found wherever the most technically demanding fitting work is happening. |
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Riggers operate cranes and rigging systems to lift and position steel assemblies that can weigh many tons, placing them with precision within fractions of an inch. |
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Electricians wire and maintain lighting, power distribution, navigation, and communications systems throughout the vessel, often switching between tasks in confined spaces with live systems nearby. |
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Painters and Blasters prepare steel surfaces through abrasive blasting and apply protective coatings — working in some of the most chemically intensive environments on the entire worksite. |
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Sheet Metal Workers fabricate and install ductwork, ventilation systems, and interior structural panels throughout the ship. |
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Insulators apply thermal and acoustic insulation to pipe systems, machinery spaces, and structural components — a trade with a long and serious occupational health history. |
These are not entry-level jobs. Most require years of apprenticeship and ongoing certification. And each carries specific injury risks tied directly to the tools they use and the environments they work in.
The Workplace: Why Shipyards Are So Dangerous
A shipyard is unlike almost any other industrial workplace in the country. Workers operate simultaneously on multiple levels of a vessel under construction — on the open deck above, inside the hull, and deep in the mechanical spaces below. The work environment shifts constantly as a ship moves from steel erection to outfitting to final commissioning, changing the hazards that workers face week to week.
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Surfaces and footing present constant challenges. Steel decks are slick from rain, ocean spray, oil, and hydraulic fluid. Cables, hoses, air lines, and pipe runs crisscross every walkway. Open hatches and deck penetrations create fall hazards that are not always barricaded. Scaffolding runs the full height of vessels that may be several stories tall. |
Confined spaces are a defining feature of shipyard work. Tanks, voids, bilge compartments, pump rooms, and pipe chases are entered daily by workers who perform welding, grinding, painting, and insulation work inside spaces barely large enough to turn around in. These spaces can contain oxygen-deficient atmospheres, accumulated solvent vapors, welding fume concentrations, and limited or no natural ventilation. |
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Noise is pervasive and intense. Grinding, blasting, chipping, riveting, and heavy machinery operate simultaneously across the yard and inside enclosed spaces where sound has nowhere to dissipate. Noise levels in certain areas can reach or exceed levels that cause hearing damage within minutes of unprotected exposure. |
Overhead hazards are present throughout. Cranes move large steel sections constantly. Workers on lower levels are exposed to dropped tools, falling materials, and swinging crane loads from workers above. |
Injury Types: What the Data Shows
Federal data documents the most common and serious injury categories in shipyard employment. The following reflects injury patterns documented by OSHA, NIOSH, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Slips, Trips, and Falls
Falls are the shipyard’s most persistent cause of serious injury and death — and the federal record is unambiguous that most of them are preventable. BLS data recorded an average of 642 injuries per year involving slips, trips, and falls resulting in days away from work in shipyard employment. Falls account for 40% of all fatalities in shipyard employment in the long-term federal record, and of the 32 documented falls resulting in death or hospitalization in shipbuilding and ship repair tracked by OSHA, 24 — or 80% — were fatal. Workers fall from scaffolding, ladders, open deck edges, and through unguarded hatches. They slip on wet steel, oil spills, and loose materials. Injuries range from fractures and traumatic brain injury to fatal falls of multiple stories. Recovery from a serious fall can take months to years; spinal and head injuries can be permanently disabling.
What makes the fall data particularly damning is not just the volume — it is the cause. OSHA has stated directly in its own rulemaking record that many shipyard fall fatalities could have been prevented by employers simply providing and using fall protection. The agency has documented fatal incidents involving workers with no tie-off, unguarded platform edges, and failed guardrail systems. These are not freak accidents. They are failures of basic employer responsibility.
The most recent and stark example comes from November 2023, when a 41-year-old worker at Detyens Shipyards Inc. in North Charleston, South Carolina — a major Navy defense contractor — fell nearly 20 feet from an unguarded platform inside a gas tank aboard a U.S. naval vessel. He was not wearing a harness. OSHA’s subsequent investigation found the company had willfully permitted workers to access an elevated platform with no guardrails. The agency cited Detyens for the violation and proposed $190,130 in penalties. What OSHA also revealed: this was the fourth fatality at that shipyard in five years. The agency noted it had identified dozens of serious violations at the facility going back to 2014 — meaning the warnings were there, the citations were issued, and a worker still died. “This tragedy was preventable,” OSHA stated — a phrase the agency has used repeatedly in its shipyard enforcement actions over the years.
Grinder Injuries
Angle grinders are among the most commonly used — and most dangerous — tools in the shipyard. Welders use them to clean and dress welds. Boilermakers use them to grind steel. Shipfitters use them to cut and shape components. An angle grinder’s disc spins at thousands of RPM and can cut through steel, concrete, and human tissue with equal ease.
The primary injury mechanisms are kickback (the grinder suddenly jumps off the material and contacts the worker), disc shatter (the abrasive disc breaks apart, sending high-velocity fragments outward), and direct wheel contact. Injuries include severe lacerations to the hands, forearms, and fingers; tendon and nerve severance; open fractures; and partial or full amputations. Research on grinder hand and forearm injuries found an average return-to-work time of more than seven weeks — and that figure spans minor and severe injuries alike. Serious cases involving tendon repair or amputation can require multiple surgeries and months of rehabilitation. OSHA data shows a 20% fatality rate for injuries caused by grinder kickback, with the remaining 80% severe enough to require hospitalization.
Overexertion and Musculoskeletal Injuries
Overexertion is the single leading cause of days away from work in the shipbuilding industry. It covers muscle strains, tendon injuries, and the cumulative physical toll of working in extreme postures — crouching inside tanks, lying in bilges, welding overhead — while handling heavy equipment day after day. Low back pain is the defining musculoskeletal condition of the shipyard workforce. Studies have found that more than 35% of shipyard workers experience absence from work due to musculoskeletal pain. Herniated discs, rotator cuff tears, knee injuries, and carpal tunnel syndrome are common among long-tenured workers across virtually every trade. These conditions often develop gradually over years before reaching a point where a worker can no longer continue.
Struck-By and Machinery Crush Injuries
Cranes, forklifts, and material handling equipment operate constantly throughout the yard. When something goes wrong — a rigging failure, a forklift collision, a dropped load — the results are often catastrophic. Being struck by or caught between objects is one of the five leading causes of death in shipyards. Crush injuries can result in compartment syndrome, amputation, internal organ damage, and fatality. Workers struck by swinging crane loads may suffer multiple simultaneous injuries: fractures, spinal damage, and traumatic brain injury at the same time.
Chemical Exposures — Asbestos, Welding Fumes, and Solvents
Shipyards are chemically intensive environments. Workers face exposure to a range of hazardous substances that cause both acute and chronic illness.
Asbestos was used in virtually every system of ships built before the early 1980s — pipe insulation, gaskets, fireproofing, floor tiles, and more. An estimated 3.5 million U.S. workers faced asbestos exposure in shipyards. Workers who cut, handled, or worked near asbestos-containing materials — especially insulators, pipefitters, and machinists — inhaled microscopic fibers that become permanently embedded in lung tissue. The diseases caused by asbestos exposure — mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer — do not appear for 20 to 40 years after exposure, meaning retired workers are often only now receiving diagnoses tied to work they performed decades ago. One-third of all mesothelioma patients in the U.S. today are former shipyard workers or Navy veterans.
Welding fumes contain manganese, hexavalent chromium (a known carcinogen), nickel, and other metals. Long-term inhalation causes lung damage, elevated cancer risk, and manganism — a neurological condition with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.
Paints, solvents, and surface coatings used in painting and blasting operations expose workers to compounds that affect the nervous system, liver, and kidneys. Workers performing coating operations inside confined spaces face particularly concentrated exposures with limited air exchange.
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
Shipyards are among the loudest workplaces in American industry. Grinding, blasting, chipping, and riveting produce sustained noise levels that — especially in enclosed hull spaces — can cause hearing damage rapidly and without warning. Noise-induced hearing loss is permanent and irreversible. The hair cells in the inner ear destroyed by excessive noise do not regenerate. Long-tenured shipyard workers frequently experience significant high-frequency hearing loss, chronic tinnitus, and difficulty understanding speech — conditions that affect quality of life long after leaving the yard.
Burns and Fire/Explosion Injuries
Welding and cutting operations produce sparks and intense heat in environments where flammable materials — paints, fuels, solvents — may be present nearby. Arc flash burns to the eyes can cause temporary or permanent vision damage. Skin burns from welding spatter, hot metal, and ignited clothing are common. Explosions from fuel tanks, pressurized systems, or accumulated flammable vapors in confined spaces can produce blast injuries, large-area burns, and multi-system trauma. Recovery from serious burns involves extended hospitalization, multiple surgeries, and skin grafting, with permanent scarring and functional loss as common outcomes.
Know Your Rights
If you are an IAM member who has been seriously injured in a shipyard, workers’ compensation is an important first step — but it may not cover the full picture of what you’re entitled to. It doesn’t account for pain and suffering, and it was never designed to address injuries caused by defective equipment or third-party negligence. Schwarz & Schwarz has represented IAM members for decades protecting members rights. If a defective grinder, a manufacturer’s failure to warn about asbestos, or a subcontractor’s safety violation contributed to your injury, you may have options beyond workers’ comp.
Workers’ comp may not be your only option. Contact us today for a free consultation.
This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.