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Report Documents Lax to OSHA Enforcement Under Bush

April 6, 2009

A shocking new report program by the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Labor documents the failure of a Bush administration program that may have contributed to fatalities at dozens of workplaces that had previously been inspected, revealing serious violations of OSHA safety and health standards.

OSHA set up its “enhanced enforcement program” in 2003 to step up enforcement against serious violators. In 97 percent of studied enforcement cases, says the report, OSHA’s follow-up was deficient or lacking. At worksites of 45 employers where OSHA oversight was deficient, 58 workers subsequently were killed by job hazards.

OSHA oversees workplace safety in about half of the states.  The remaining states have their own programs.  The report reviewed federal inspections in the Southeast and two other regions.

The Washington Post reports that sloppy recordkeeping at OSHA failed to uncover repeat fatalities.  Files misspelled the companies’ names.  Investigators didn’t notice or connect deaths occurring at subsidiary companies.

Celeste Monforton, a former OSHA policy analyst who is now an assistant research professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services, told the Post that government officials were “suggesting to the public that you’ve got an enhanced enforcement program going for five years, and it’s not enhanced at all…It’s not getting to the bad actors, and you’re giving the public a false sense of effectiveness.”

“With nearly 6,000 workers killed on the job each year,” says International President Edwin D. Hill, we are looking to partner with the Obama administration and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in heeding this report and ushering in a new era of workplace safety.”

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user John D Blundell