![\"OSHA](\"http:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Billerica-300x212.jpg\")
At a Congressional hearing last month, Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta extolled the virtues of compliance assistance, cooperation over confrontation and the Voluntary Protection Program. But he also repeated several times that the agency’s compliance assistance program “has to be balanced by a vigorous enforcement program” and especially when the employer engages in\u00a0repeated and willful violations, there needs to be aggressive enforcement.<\/p>\n
The good news is that the large cases we’re seeing below present some evidence that OSHA is continuing to take enforcement seriously, although it’s too early to tell whether we’ll have the same number of large cases as in recent previous years or whether penalty levels remain at the same level as previous years. Another interesting analysis will be whether OSHA has continued to cite under the General Duty Clause for hazardous conditions that aren’t covered by OSHA standards, like workplace violence.<\/p>\n
And we’re finally seeing the freeze on\u00a0press releases<\/a>\u00a0covering enforcement cases start to thaw. OSHA issued twelve enforcement case-related press releases during the month of November, compared with a total of twenty issued in the first nine months of this administration. There still doesn’t seem like there’s any kind of consistent press release policy, but the numbers show an apparent return to normalcy, at least for the month of November.<\/p>\n Let’s start with\u00a0the largest.<\/p>\nLarge OSHA Cases With Press Releases<\/h2>\n
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