The North Dakota Safety Council has handed out awards to businesses that have shown a dedication to the safety and health of their workers.
In all, 73 awards were presented to 63 individuals and businesses.
"A lot of them are about incident rates, in terms of how often you have injuries at the workplace," said Safety Council executive director Chuck Claremont. "There are also commendations for groups that have a special achievement, whether it be man-hours without a lost-time incident, things like that. They're all safety related. And they're meeting or beating national averages."
Claremont says three awards for “significant safety accomplishments” were given. One went to Wanzek Construction.
"They had a milestone of almost 3 million man-hours without a lost time injury, Claremont said. "Their last time was in July, 2014. So that's a lot of time."
Another was given to KLJ, which has had more than 3 million man-hours without a loss time accident. Claremont says the third award went to Saulsbury Industries, a company that works with oil and gas producers.
"They have over 7.5 million man hours without a lost time incident," Claremont said. "That is absolutely amazing."
Claremont says it shows companies do care about keeping their workers safe and healthy.
"People care," Claremont said. "They do care about getting their people home safely every day. And they want to have a safe environment, so that when people come there, they don't have to be worried that there's going to be an injury. They know their company supports them."
In 2014, there were 38 fatal workplace injuries in North Dakota. Claremont says giving out these awards are part of the NDSC effort to reduce that number.