Acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab says that OSHA is gearing up to go after employers that are not meeting their obligations under the OSH Act. A new enhanced enforcement program is in the works.
We’ve all known since the new administration took office that change was coming to OSHA. Now it looks like enhanced enforcement is at the top of the list of changes, with more likely to come.
Testifying at the end of April before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, Barab, the acting assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, said that OSHA is replacing its existing Enhanced Enforcement Program (EEP), initiated in 2003 under the Bush administration, with a new program, provisionally named the Severe Violators Inspection Program (SVIP).
OSHA expects that the new SVIP will more effectively identify and inspect “recalcitrant” employers.
“Although the details are still being worked out,” Barab told subcommittee members, “the new program will ensure that recalcitrant employers not meeting their obligations under the OSH Act are targeted for additional enforcement action.”
Barab also said that OSHA would work closely with the Justice Department to prosecute employers that repeatedly violated OSHA standards.
Barab was responding to a report released in March by the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), which criticized the current EEP for failing to meet its stated goals in more than 95 percent of the cases the OIG reviewed.
Subcommittee Chair Lynn Woolsey agreed with the OIG’s assessment, saying, "After 6 years of operation, it’s clear that the Enhanced Enforcement Program original design is flawed, and that OSHA under the Bush administration did not implement the program as intended. We need to know why the program is not working and what we can do to fix it. The EEP has failed hundreds of workers … and that is just not acceptable."
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Cases Cited
Two cases in particular have been repeatedly cited to highlight the deficiencies of the former administration’s EEP.
Among the cases reviewed by the OIG and discussed at the subcommittee hearing in April was a case involving a Waste Management facility in Florida where a mechanic named Raul Figueroa was killed.
Prior to Figueroa’s death, Waste Management had been cited repeatedly by OSHA for serious violations at worksites throughout the country.
Eric Frumin, director of health and safety at Change to Win, told the subcommittee that Waste Management’s OSHA violations had increased by 28 percent between 2003 and 2007. “If Waste Management had implemented a comprehensive safety program, and held its managers accountable,” Frumin said, “Raul Figueroa might well be alive today."
A second case frequently cited by advocates of more aggressive enforcement and citations involved an 2007 accident at a Cintas Corporation facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where employee Eleazar Torres-Gomez fell from a conveyor belt into an industrial dryer and was killed.
After that accident Woolsey said, “We want to know if there are ways to enable OSHA to more effectively hold large employers accountable for compliance throughout their operations and ensure broader abatement of hazards.”
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What to Expect
Barab told subcommittee members that the SVIP will be a comprehensive revision of the existing EEP, focusing more on large companies and less on small businesses.
Some of the changes under consideration for the program include:
• Mandatory follow-up inspections
• Inspections of other employer sites
• Additional enhanced settlement provisions
• More intensive examination of an employer’s history for systemic problems that would trigger additional mandatory inspections
The new program will undergo “continual review” by field and headquarters staff in order to make ongoing improvements, Barab promised.
That’s what you can expect. Now, what can you do about it? Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how Safety.BLR.com can help keep you from running afoul of OSHA safety and health rules in this new, tougher enforcement climate.
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