Bills would make VPP a permanent OSHA program
April 22, 2011 by Fred HosierPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, OSHA news, Voluntary Protection Program, What do you think?
PDF A bipartisan effort in Congress would make sure that an OSHA assistance program sticks around.
Right now, OSHA could eliminate or cut back on its Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) if it wanted to. Two newly introduced (and identical) bills, S. 807 and H.R. 1511, would require VPP under law.
VPP recognizes companies that have implemented effective safety and health management systems and maintain injury and illness rates below national Bureau of Labor Statistics averages for their respective industries. VPP participants are exempt from OSHA programmed inspections while they maintain their VPP status.
As federal budgets become tighter, VPP has been a target for cuts. Alternatively, the Obama administration has proposed requiring companies to pay a fee to participate in the program.
The bill would ban the federal government from charging companies for participation in the program.
Inspection exemptions would continue except for investigations arising from employee complaints, fatalities, catastrophes or significant toxic releases.
OSHA would also be required to take steps to increase small business participation in VPP.
OSHA administrator David Michaels has said that under his direction, the agency would focus more on compliance and less on programs such as VPP.
Do you think VPP should become a permanent OSHA program? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.
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Tags: safety and health management systems, Voluntary Protection Program, VPP
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April 25th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
It takes alot of work to become a VPP facility. I think this program is perfect for those employers who “get it”. If OSHA truly wants to concentrate on the bad actors, then the VPP should be fully funded as to remove the good actors from the programmed inspection pool.
April 26th, 2011 at 7:39 am
To understand the VPP program and go through the VPP process is not the “cake walk” it is made out to be. It indeed takes a tremendous amount of hard work and effort, but most of all it is about changing culture. We will never change the safety culture in this country, by promoting fines from enforcement. There are too many companies willing to pay the fines and continue to put their employees at risk. VPP can and has changed the way some companies think about safety. It would be extremely degrading to the companies that put forth this effort to ” Go above & beyond ” to charge them a fee to participate in this program. “It never fells, when something good in this country is working and benefitial to the better of our society, our government wants to take it away.”
April 26th, 2011 at 10:27 am
Involvement by government is typically not a good thing in the regulatory world and if Mr. Michaels thinks the only way to obtain compliance is with a stick, he never heard the saying my dad told me in “words sink in when they are whispered, not yelled.” To minimize a valualble compliance tool such as VPP, OSHA is taking huge steps backwards in attracting companies to commit to safety by cutting funding from this program. From the companies I know who are VPP certified, they experience superior safety performance. To paraphase what another commenter said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And I applaud the bi-partisian efforts in Congress to mandate permanent funding of VPP.
June 21st, 2011 at 8:43 am
The main reason VPP works at all is because workers and employers have to partner honestly in the safety arena. Employers and workers must earn the VPP status, not buy it! You would be amazed at number of employers (and workers) that have never heard of VPP, or how to participate!
The program promotes a long term safety incentive by way of the status levels within it. Just because you earned it today, does not mean you cannot lose it tomorrow. It is an on-going process. Make the employers and ultimately workers pay for? Nonsense, one cannot purchase safety! Make it permanent? It is permanent as long as employers’ and workers meet the criteria, and everyone is onboard.