OSHA Plans Comprehensive Safety Inspections for Nearly 4,000 High-Hazard Worksites

Last Friday the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced that its Site-Specific Targeting 2009 (SST) program (pdf) will focus its enforcement efforts on approximately 4,000 high-hazard worksites, including nursing homes and manufacturing establishments. The SST inspection program is based on injury and illness data from OSHA’s 2008 Data Initiative survey of 80,000 employers with 40 or more workers in industries with historically high occupational injury and illness rates. The agency uses this data to determine which work sites will receive comprehensive safety inspections.

According to a press release, this year’s SST program will not use one rate for all types of establishments, but rather will set minimum injury and illness rates for three separate categories of employers: manufacturing, non-manufacturing, and nursing homes. Doing so, the agency claims, will enable OSHA to inspect more facilities that exceed the minimum rate. In addition, some employers that did not respond to an OSHA Data Initiative survey will be automatically added to the inspection list. In a statement, acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab said: “[t]hese inspections examine all aspects of a workplace's operations and the effectiveness of its safety and health efforts.”

The push for increased safety inspections is part of a larger enforcement trend within the Department of Labor (DOL). In June, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told attendees at the American Society of Safety Engineers’ annual conference: “Make no mistake about it: The Department of Labor is back in the enforcement business.” Jordan Barab similarly emphasized this sentiment, stating: “[t]he law says that employers are responsible for workplace safety and health, and there's a new sheriff in town to enforce the law."