A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
OSHA has engaged in a furious flurry of press activity over the past month. Well, “furious” by Trump-OSHA standards. By anyone else’s standards, it’s still pathetic. OSHA has issued an astonishing total of six press releases since the beginning of August. This is, of course, practically nothing compared with the more than 50 large cases…
Who’s running OSHA now? Alexandra Berzon of the Wall St. Journal reports that OSHA cut back its reporting of workplace fatalities at the urging of the Chamber of Commerce. (Click here if WSJ link doesn’t work.) Under the Obama administration, “they saw this as a way to scare employers straight,” said Marc Freedman, executive director…
I’ve been writing (over and over again) about OSHA’s failure to issue more than a tiny number of enforcement-related press releases since the beginning of the Trump administration, despite the fact that they actually educate employers and workers, and apply pressure on employers who may need a bit of urging to provide a safe workplace.…
Here we are, at the end of July, and OSHA continues to hide the fact that it actually enforces the Occupational Safety and Health Act. OSHA has issued two (2) enforcement-related press releases this month, out of probably 50 cases that exceeded $40,000. In the first three weeks of July there were 13 cases above…
According to OSHA’s Organizational Chart, Loren Sweatt has now made the long voyage across the National Mall to become OSHA’s new political Deputy Assistant Secretary — and the agency’s first political appointee of the Trump administration. I’m assuming she will be — in effect if not in name — OSHA’s Acting Assistant Secretary, although the…
Press Release Drought Continues When Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta testified last month before the US Senate, he committed to citing employers who have the information about how to make the workplace safe, but don’t do what they need to do to provide a safe workplace. Well, to their credit, OSHA continues to enforce the…
Since late April, OSHA has issued only three additional enforcement press releases (listed below, Gulf Cable, the Saipan casino case, and Republic Steel). Whereas the Obama administration issued press releases for any case greater than $40,000 (as well as “novel” cases like workplace violence and heat stroke), there seems to be no rhyme or reason…
After almost four months, the Trump Administration’s OSHA has issued only two enforcement-related press releases, despite having issued well over 200 citations with penalties exceeding $40,000 — the former threshold for a press release. The more than 200 cases with penalties greater than $40,000 since January 20 are listed below. The Washington Post today describes OSHA’s failure…
Could Alex Acosta be ushering in a new era at OSHA (or maybe re-ushering in an old era)? Yesterday OSHA issued a press release announcing $569,463 in proposed penalties against Antoneum North America after a machine amputated a 46-year-old worker’s right hand, wrist and part of his forearm. OSHA issued three willful and two repeated violations of machine…
Twenty more companies succeeded over the past week in hiding federal OSHA enforcement actions from the withering public scrutiny that press releases have traditionally provided. Since last January 18, OSHA has issued only one enforcement-related press release. As usual, for a few we have been able to get some details that might have been useful…