“Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers,” according to a new Web site.

The statement on the home page of 16deathsperday.com goes on to say, “Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace.”

A five-minute video profiles two workplace fatalities where companies paid relatively small fines and didn’t face criminal prosecution.

The group’s message: Companies would rather pay low OSHA fines rather than spend more money on worker safety.

To change that, the Web site endorses passage of the Protecting America’s Workers Act. That bill would:

• allow OSHA to pursue criminal charges against a company for an employee’s death, including fines and up to 10 years in prison for owners and managers. Criminal penalties for serious bodily injury to an employee could include up to five years in prison.
• increase the civil penalty for an employee death from $50,000 to $250,000, with a minimum $25,000 fine for companies with 25 or fewer employees
• raise the maximum fines for willful and repeat citations to $120,000, and
• increase OSHA fines every four years for inflation.

What do you think of 16deathsperday.com’s message? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Labor Department officials and officials from other states have descended on Nevada to scrutinize how it investigates workplace accidents.

The Sun ran a series of articles last year — for which it won a Pulitzer Prize — detailing serious problems with worker safety in Nevada. During an 18-month stretch, 12 construction workers were killed on the Las Vegas Strip.

Acting OSHA head Jordan Barab had warned state officials that the feds planned to intensify their monitoring of state plans.

OSHA’s only enforcement tool is complete takeover of a state agency, something it’s never done. But OSHA observers say this intervention is the most dramatic in a state plan since 1991, when the feds strongly considered taking over North Carolina’s state plan.

A report is expected to be issued in about a month.

OSHA’s intent, announced recently as part of a release about a new national emphasis program, is to spend the next year hitting as many facilities as possible. OSHA calls it a new approach for compliance officers: Ask a series of tough questions and quickly move on to the next facility.

But don’t mistake “quick” for “easy.”  The goal is to verify that written and implemented PSM programs are consistent.

And acting OSHA head Jordan Barab has made it clear that compliance with PSM standards is a top priority.

Michaels, a professor at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, detailed his views in Congressional testimony two years ago.

To paraphrase, he saw the agency as weak, unmotivated, understaffed, heavily impeded and generally ineffective.

Here are a few excerpts, which clearly signal his views on recordkeeping, ergonomics, rulemaking and the General Duty Clause, among other topics:

• “Preventable work related injuries and illnesses … are unacceptably high. Furthermore, the true incidence of these conditions is far higher than reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
• OSHA enforcement does not appear to be effective in further reducing injury rates. …  Statistical analyses indicate that (any reported) decrease can be attributable to changes in OSHA recordkeeping rules.
• “For most hazardous chemicals, OSHA’s standards are either inadequate or totally absent. One could write a book about the hazards that OSHA has failed to regulate adequately.”
• “The primary blame (for OSHA’s failure to issue appropriate health standards) rests in a system that makes OSHA standard setting inordinately difficult and resource-intensive.”
• “OSHA has abandoned the general duty clause. It is time for the agency to start using it again.”
• “Ergonomic injuries cost employers $15-20 billion annually in workers’ compensation costs alone, yet this number one workplace safety and health problem is not even mentioned on OSHA’s most recent regulatory agenda.”
• “OSHA doesn’t have the staff to work on more than one or two standards at a time, and … each standard takes years to complete. Unless things change radically, only a handful of the thousands of chemicals in daily use in American workplaces will ever be the subject of an OSHA standard.”

There’s no question that OSHA will change radically if Michaels is approved by the Senate and moves his agenda forward — an aggressive approach that Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and interim OSHA head Jordan Barab appear to have already set in motion.

Do you expect OSHA to make your job tougher in the coming years? Tell us what you think in the Comment Box below.

And the case hasn’t been settled.

The fact that the appeal is dragging on is significant.  But how it turns out may be even more significant.

When the fine was announced, company CEO John Sheptor said he hoped the whole thing would be settled “in a few weeks,” according to an article in the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

In the same article, plantiffs lawyer Mark Tate explains why that hasn’t happened: “(OSHA’s) pressing its case as doggedly as private lawyers would. Proposed OSHA fines used to get settled for pennies on the dollar. But not this time.”

This chart, posted by probublica.org, lends credence to the “pennies on the dollar” comment. Many of OSHA’s largest proposed fines eventually withered into small fractions of their original figures.

Does this mean OSHA is now overreaching? Or is developing a bite that matches its bark long overdue? Let us know what you think in the Comment Box below.

A Wall Street Journal article discusses the backgrounds of some of the selections.

President Obama’s latest choice, Joseph Main to oversee the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), continues a strong trend toward choosing labor over management and increased regulation over the Bush administration’s more hands-off approach.

Main was for many years a union official and mine-safety advocate. He began his career working in coal mines.

If approved, he’ll join Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who had a well-documented pro-union background, and temporary OSHA head Jordan Barab, who previously worked for the AFL-CIO and who was fiercely critical of Bush’s labor policies.

In contrast, previous Labor Secretary Elaine Chao worked for Citicorp and BankAmerica and was considered anti-regulation and a staunch ally of business. Previous OSHA head Edwin Foulke Jr. was a management-side labor lawyer.

Main would be the first confirmed head of MSHA since 2004. Richard Stickler, who filled the post under President Bush, was a controversial former Bethlehem Steel executive who was installed as a recess appointment after failing to win approval from the Senate.

Mining-association groups say they expect Main, if approved, to be tough. But, they add, they know him and can work with him.

He may have his work cut out for him. Public Citizen, a consumer-advocacy group, says the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission has a backlog of 13,000 mine-safety disputes.

What do you expect from President Obama’s nominees? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Explosions at the plant killed 14 people and injured many more.

Interviews conducted by OSHA with plant workers uncovered the alleged lack of training, according to The Savannah Morning News.

OSHA is seeking $8.8 million in fines for alleged safety violations at two Imperial plants. Imperial is appealing.

About 40 workers said they didn’t receive training on how to get out of the building in an emergency. Only about 30 people said they were shown how to leave.

Just 5 people ever recalled a fire drill at the plant.

Former corporate safety manager Michael Lastie said in a sworn statement that the company lacked a document that “clearly spelled out … the roles and responsibilities of the first responder team.”

Creating such a document was a recommendation made to the company after a 2004 safety evaluation.

Imperial also faces lawsuits from victims’ families.

OSHA is preparing a National Emphasis Program (NEP) on recordkeeping. Its targets:

• Companies in high-injury industries with low injury rates. OSHA will check to see that records match reality.
• Incentive programs that encourage employees not to report injuries. Example: The unit with the lowest injury rate for the quarter will win prizes or get a special financial reward.
• Disincentives to report injuries. Example: Workers who report injuries are disciplined or fired.

Speaking at the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Safety 2009 conference in San Antonio, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab said the agency isn’t opposed to incentive programs, as long as the incentives are for proactive measures.

Barab said he’s somewhat skeptical of behavioral programs that always blame workers for incidents and injuries.

In an interview with SafetyNewsAlert.com after his speech, Barab pointed to the 2005 BP Texas City, TX, disaster in which 15 employees were killed and 170 were injured in an explosion. Barab said the first thing BP did was to fire a bunch of workers “when that was only the tip of the iceberg,” according to an investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

On another topic, Barab said OSHA isn’t eliminating the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). However, he added that the days of OSHA forming alliances with various industry groups instead of enacting new or revising existing standards are over.

When will OSHA have a permanent administrator? Barab said at this point, it looks like it will be fall at the earliest. However, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has told Barab not to wait. When Barab took the position as interim head of OSHA, Solis told him to go full speed ahead on her workplace safety agenda, which includes vigorous enforcement and enactment of new standards. Barab will assume the No. 2 position at OSHA once a permanent administrator is confirmed.

Barab said OSHA will react quickly to injury trends, such as moving inspectors to Texas, starting in July, to counter the high number of construction fatalities in the state (see our earlier story here). “A SWAT team of OSHA inspectors will fan out over Texas,” Barab said, to visit sites in locales where construction fatalities and injuries have been a particular problem.

Between October 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009, OSHA has conducted 24,075 inspections, according to data released at the American Society of Safety Engineers’ Safety 2009 conference. At that rate, OSHA should match the number of inspections performed in 2008: 38,450.

So far in the 2009 fiscal year, 63% of inspections have been the result of OSHA programs that target industries or facilities with high incident rates.

The rest, 37% are due to fatalities, injuries or an employee complaint.

Six out of ten inspections have been in the construction industry.

In 2008, 121 inspections resulted in fines of more than $100,000. From Oct. 1, 2008 through June 26, 2009, there have been 72 six-figure or larger fines.

Sometimes, OSHA inspectors don’t find any problems. That’s been the case 22% of the time so far in FY ‘09.

OSHA finds an average of 3.1 violations per inspection. Of those, it classifies 81% in categories that mean higher fines for companies: serious, willful, repeat and failure to abate.

For the last eight years, OSHA has de-emphasized recordkeeping inspections. That’s about to change.

OSHA is preparing a National Emphasis Program (NEP) on recordkeeping. Its targets:

• Companies in high-injury industries with low injury rates. OSHA will check to see that records match reality.
• Incentive programs that encourage employees not to report injuries. Example: The unit with the lowest injury rate for the quarter will win prizes or get a special financial reward.
• Disincentives to report injuries. Example: Workers who report injuries are disciplined or fired.

Speaking at the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Safety 2009 conference in San Antonio, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab said the agency isn’t opposed to incentive programs, as long as the incentives are for proactive measures.

Barab said he’s somewhat skeptical of behavioral programs that always blame workers for incidents and injuries.

In an interview with SafetyNewsAlert.com after his speech, Barab pointed to the 2005 BP Texas City, TX, disaster in which 15 employees were killed and 170 were injured in an explosion. Barab said the first thing BP did was to fire a bunch of workers “when that was only the tip of the iceberg,” according to an investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

On another topic, Barab said OSHA isn’t eliminating the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). However, he added that the days of OSHA forming alliances with various industry groups instead of enacting new or revising existing standards are over.

When will OSHA have a permanent administrator? Barab said at this point, it looks like it will be fall at the earliest. However, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has told Barab not to wait. When Barab took the position as interim head of OSHA, Solis told him to go full speed ahead on her workplace safety agenda, which includes vigorous enforcement and enactment of new standards. Barab will assume the No. 2 position at OSHA once a permanent administrator is confirmed.

Barab said OSHA will react quickly to injury trends, such as moving inspectors to Texas, starting in July, to counter the high number of construction fatalities in the state (see our earlier story here). “A SWAT team of OSHA inspectors will fan out over Texas,” Barab said, to visit sites in locales where construction fatalities and injuries have been a particular problem.

Check back with SafetyNewsAlert.com often this week for updates from the ASSE Safety 2009 conference.

At the American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Safety 2009 conference, Jordan Barab noted that the last time OSHA fines were restructured was in 1990.

Right now, the average fine for a serious violation is between $900 and $1,000. Barab says that’s not enough of a disincentive to force companies to address safety hazards.

It would be up to Congress to change OSHA’s penalty structure, and there is a bill introduced to do just that.

Ultimately, Barab says he’d like OSHA fines to be comparable to those EPA is able to issue for environmental violations.

He’d also like Congress to make it easier for OSHA to bring criminal penalties for egregious violations.

Check back with SafetyNewsAlert.com all this week for news from ASSE’s Safety 2009 conference.

“Make no mistake about it: The Department of Labor (DOL) is back in the enforcement business,” Solis told an audience of safety professionals in San Antonio, TX, attending Safety 2009.

She acknowledges that in these difficult economic times it’s more difficult for safety professionals to sell employee safety and health to their companies. For that reason, Solis said the agency wants to work with more companies to help them provide safer workplaces so that mothers and fathers can return home, uninjured, to their children each day.

But the current recession isn’t stopping OSHA and its parent department, DOL, from stepping up enforcement.

Solis noted that OSHA’s 2010 budget request calls for 130 more inspectors. In comments to reporters after her speech, Solis said, “I’d like to have more [inspectors], but we’re not in that position,” due to the economy.

The Secretary was asked about the lack of a permanent administrator for OSHA. Jordan Barab is the acting administrator and will assume the No. 2 position at the agency once a permanent head is confirmed. Solis expressed frustration with the U.S. Senate confirmation process. She noted that there are other nominees to DOL positions who have been in the pipeline for four months without being confirmed. She said it was important to have a new leader of OSHA, and that’s why Barab was appointed interim administrator, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation.

Solis said she hasn’t yet read the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found deficiencies with OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program. She said she agrees with the concerns expressed by the GAO and by members of the House and Senate regarding OSHA’s enforcement capabilities.

The Secretary also took the opportunity during her speech in front of thousands of safety professionals in San Antonio to announce a new initiative to decrease construction fatalities and injuries in Texas. Since 2007, there have been 145 construction fatalities in Texas, a number Solis called “intolerable.”

Beginning in July, OSHA will increase the number of inspectors in Texas for a concentrated effort aimed at construction sites. If an inspector sees scaffold, fall, trenching or other hazards, they’re empowered to launch an immediate investigation.

Check back with SafetyNewsAlert.com often this week for updates from the ASSE Safety 2009 conference.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that OSHA’s internal controls aren’t sufficient to ensure that only qualified worksites participate in VPP.

From January 2003 to August 2008, 30 VPP sites had fatalities. The GAO found that some sites had safety and health violations related to the fatalities and remained in the VPP despite no longer meeting the definition of an exemplary workplace.

OSHA’s response to the GAO report came swiftly. It said it’s committed to fixing any problems with the program.

But the headline OSHA put on its own press release tells the real story: “OSHA begins evaluation of Voluntary Protection Program.”

The release goes on to say that OSHA’s evaluation will “determine how the agency should best allocate its resources among cooperative programs, enforcement and the agency’s other activities.”

VPP and its related Alliance Program will go under the microscope “to determine their effectiveness as well as review the programs’ roles in helping the agency promote the safety and health of America’s workers.”

Acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab noted that the agency hadn’t acted on a 2004 GAO report that suggested an evaluation of VPP’s effectiveness.

The Obama administration has made no secret of wanting to increase OSHA enforcement. It’s already allocated more funding to do that. One more way the administration could devote more money to enforcement: Reallocate money from cooperative programs such as VPP to inspections.

You can download the GAO’s report here.

The No. 1 goal for Britain’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE): investigating work-related accidents and illnesses and taking enforcement action to prevent harm and secure justice where appropriate.

Other HSE priorities:

• Encourage strong leadership in championing the importance of health and safety in the workplace
• Reinforce the promotion of worker involvement and consultation in health and safety matters, and
• Identify which activities deliver a significant reduction in the rate and number of deaths and accidents.

The goals were established following a survey of 1,000 British workers and 200 business owners and senior managers. Some survey findings:

• 36% of business leaders agree that the “stick” as opposed to the “carrot” is the most effective way to improve health and safety
• 26% of owners and managers admit their companies will face pressure to cut their health and safety budgets in the recession
• 60% of business leaders feel safe in their workplace, compared to just 35% of employees, and
• 22% of workers in small businesses fear that their employer will cut health and safety corners in the recession, compared to just 16% in large organizations.

The HSE says one reason it’s launching its program is because of fears that workplace safety and health will take a backseat during the current recession.

Click here to read more about Britain’s new workplace safety and health strategy.

How is the recession impacting your company’s safety plan? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

No one should really be surprised that OSHA under the Obama administration is stepping up enforcement.

But for anyone who had any doubts, Barab is making it pretty plain.

In a recent speech to the Maritime Advisory Committee, Barab noted the funding increase OSHA has already received to boost enforcement.

He capped off the budgetary summary by saying, “I want to be absolutely clear: OSHA is back in the business of standards and enforcement.”

Barab also noted that the funding increases aren’t over. The fiscal year 2010 budget proposes another $50 million increase for the agency.

OSHA plans to use part of that increase to hire 200 more employees: 130 more inspectors, 25 more investigators assigned specifically to whistleblower cases and 20 more staff who will help develop safety and health standards.

A transcript of Barab’s speech is here.

The state recently shut down five farm labor contractors for violations of heat illness prevention regulations.

Four contractors provided no shade for workers exposed to temperatures over 100 degrees, and one had less than a single gallon of water for 15 employees working in temperatures as high as 116 degrees.

The state uses the Order to Prohibit Use (OPU) to shut down employers when employees are exposed to an immediate hazard. The employers’ operations are stopped until they can prove their ability to safeguard workers.

The OPU was first used last year against Merced Farm Labor following the death of Maria Vasquez Jimenez who had been working 9 hours in a vineyard with little water and no shade.

Already this year, California has conducted over 850 heat inspections and issued more than 250 citations for violations of the heat illness prevention standards.

More information about heat illness prevention and training materials are available here.

The agency is redirecting funding from its Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) to free up more resources for enforcement in the tight economy.

OSHA doesn’t have to receive tons more federal funding to ramp up inspections. All it has to do is shift money away from the “helpful” programs established during the Bush administration and toward enforcement.

In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab said, “We need to better utilize the resources that we already have. In order to direct more of OSHA’s existing resources into enforcement and to provide time to address concerns in an upcoming GAO Report on the efficacy of OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program, I have informed the field staff that we will suspend the previous administration’s practice of establishing goals for new Voluntary Protection Program sites and Alliances.”

What else is OSHA planning to do to beef up enforcement?

OSHA’s acting administrator Jordan Barab plans to work with the Justice Department on increasing prosecution of employers that repeatedly violate safety laws. Watch for more prison sentences for owners and managers who repeatedly flaunt safety regulations.

Barab also plans to replace the failed Enhanced Enforcement Program (EEP) with a new Severe Violators Inspection Program. The EEP was recently criticized in an inspector general’s report which said it failed to adequately identify and inspect major companies with repeat violations.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are pushing legislation to increase the amounts of OSHA fines and prison sentences for owners and managers in workplace fatality cases.

The guidelines were published in a Q&A on heat-illness prevention on Cal-OSHA’s Web site:

• Where unlimited drinking water is not immediately available from a plumbed system, the employer must provide enough water for every employee to be able to drink one quart of water, or four 8-ounce cups, per hour.
• If an employer chooses not to provide the full-shift quantity of drinking water at the start of a work shift, the standard requires effective procedures for drinking-water replenishment to allow each employee to drink one quart per hour.
• Water must always be readily accessible. Employer should build their water placement strategies around a sound understanding of the fact that the more an employee has to interrupt work to drink, the greater will be the likelihood the employee will not be drinking enough water to protect fully against heat illness. An employer may choose to augment maintaining a compliant readily accessible water supply by also providing a beverage container (preferably insulated to keep the water cool) to be carried and used by the employee while working.
• When temperatures exceed 90 degrees F, having ice on hand to cool the water is recommended.
• Having shade present is considered a requirement of the standard when the outdoor dry-bulb temperature high for the area closest to the location at which employees are to work is forecast, as of 5 p.m. the previous day, to be over 85 degrees F, according to the National Weather Service. Shade must be up at the beginning of the shift and present throughout.
• Regardless of what the predicted high is, employers are expected to know if the actual temperature is exceeding 90 degrees F at their worksite. If the temperature enters this range, shade must be present regardless of the predicted high.
• Cal-OSHA consider the amount of shade to be sufficient is enough to accommodate 25% of the employees on a shift so that they can sit comfortably in the shade without touching each other. However, if more than 25% of a shift’s workers require shade at the same time, the employer must provide it immediately.
• Shade must be located less than a 1/4-mile or five-minute walk away, whichever is shorter.

For the complete set of guidelines, click here.

The spending bill that funds the federal government through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, contains a 6% boost for OSHA. Its funding will increase $27 million to a total of $513 million.

OSHA can use the money to enforce safety regulations.

The funding measure also contains a $52 million increase for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), some of which is aimed at improving the reporting of workplace injury statistics.

BLS has been criticized for under-reporting injury and fatality stats.

That’s the case with Phenix Lumber Co. in Phenix City, AL. OSHA has proposed $293,700 in penalties for 36 safety and health violations there.

For failing to correct five violations identified during a previous inspection, OSHA issued fines totaling $202,500. Those citations include failure to obtain audiograms for employees exposed to noise hazards, not implementing specific lockout/tagout procedures and lack of machine guards.

The other fines totaling $91,200 in penalties are for six repeat, seven serious and one other-than-serious violation. These include poor housekeeping of combustible dust, lack of safety signs, and using incorrect electrical and forklift equipment.

The company has 15 days to decide if it wants to contest any of the citations.

Since we started SafetyNewsAlert.com several months ago, we’ve heard from many readers that OSHA needs to hold employees as well as employers accountable for safety to reduce injuries and fatalities. Now, OSHA has taken steps with one company to do just that.

OSHA has fined 160 Broadway Corp., dba Broadway Concrete, $750,000 as part of a settlement agreement for 13 repeat violations involving fall hazards.

The amount of the fine is enough to get any company’s attention. But that’s not all Broadway agreed to.

Broadway has also agreed to reduce the salary of senior job superintendents who fail to comply with applicable OSHA and job safety practices.

So if these supervisors don’t enforce safety rules, their pay will get docked.

More costs than just a fine

Broadway will have to spend even more money as a result of this settlement. It’s also agreed to:

• Employ a full-time chief of construction operations and a corporate safety director to have authority over senior job superintendents in safety and health issues.
• Employ a full-time site safety director on each large project and have a safety director inspect smaller projects at least once a week.
• Provide safety and health management training to superintendents and supervisory personnel working on each site, and train company and subcontractor employees on each site’s safety and health plan.

Is this a good first step to make supervisors accountable for the safety of the people they manage? Should OSHA go further to dock rank-and-file workers’ pay for safety infractions? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Certified Painting Co., Inc., of Alsip, IL, faces $225,000 in fines for 17 alleged violations — eight willful and nine serious.

That’s bad enough. But this is the 16th time the company has been inspected by OSHA since 1976. It’s been cited for more than 100 safety and health violations.

In the latest case, Certified has cited for failure to:

• have proper carbon monoxide monitoring devices
• provide and ensure workers were using personal protective equipment
• provide required hygiene facilities
• ensure workers conducted required hygiene practices after possible exposure to lead or other hazardous materials
• provide U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets and have a lifesaving skiff immediately available at locations where employees were working over or adjacent to water
• provide proper fall protection for employees working on scaffolding
• maintain a safety and health program
• provide a required training program before employee exposure to lead, and
• conduct regular inspections of the job site by a competent person.

You can read more about OSHA’s citations against Certified here.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 contains $80 million for “the enforcement of worker protection laws and regulations, oversight, and coordination activities.”

The Secretary of Labor would be able to divide the funds among OSHA, the Employment and Standards Administration, and the Employment and Training Administration.

President Obama has called for a reinvigorated OSHA that would put more emphasis on enforcement of existing safety regulations.

The Senate has its own version of the bill. The two bills will have to be reconciled, with a final version passed by both houses of Congress.

We’ll keep you posted.