Changes coming to OSHA’s VPP?
December 30, 2011 by Fred HosierPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, OSHA news, Special Report, Voluntary Protection Program
PDF An OSHA official confirms to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) that a “top-to-bottom review” of the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) has been completed and recommendations on changes are being considered.
The No. 2 official at OSHA, Jordan Barab, tells CPI that a task force consisting of OSHA officials has submitted its report which is now being reviewed.
CPI reported previously that since 2000, more than 80 workers have died at VPP workplaces. In more than half of the cases, OSHA inspections following the fatalities found serious safety violations.
Despite that, VPP companies with worker fatalities aren’t often kicked out of the program, according to CPI.
Responding to fatalities at VPP sites is one of the first things the task force looked at, Barab told CPI. Barab said OSHA wants to make sure all the participants in VPP deserve to be there.
The report contains recommendations which OSHA and its legal staff are now considering.
Even before releasing the report’s findings, CPI reports OSHA has taken some actions:
- American Packaging Corp. withdrew from VPP after OSHA told the company it was considering kicking it out of VPP because of a fatal explosion at its Columbus, WI, plant, and
- OSHA recently acknowledged its database of deaths at VPP sites was incomplete and that it had updated the list to include more fatalities identified by CPI’s investigative reports.
A recent example
On Nov. 30, 2010, Julio Colon-Figueroa was found lying on the ground next to a large piece of metal and bleeding from the head at Trinity Marine in Ashland City, TN.
As he was being taken to a local hospital, he died.
In 2009, the location earned a VPP Star from OSHA for outstanding safety performance and processes.
However, Colon-Figueroa’s death was the third work-related fatality at Trinity in 13 years. Two other workers were injured in incidents in 1998 and 2002.
OSHA VPP Star status exempts companies from the agency’s programmed inspections.
Following its investigation into the 2010 fatality, OSHA issued Trinity one serious violation of the General Duty Clause. OSHA said Trinity didn’t furnish a place of employment which was free from recognized hazards that caused or were likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees. Specifically, employees were exposed to struck-by and crushing hazards, according to the agency. Trinity was fined $7,000, the maximum for one serious violation.
Trinity has appealed the citation to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Meanwhile, OSHA’s Web page, “Industries in the VPP Federal and State Plans as of 11/30/2011,” lists Trinity Marine’s Ashland location as in the program.
While Barab said OSHA was looking into what to do when a VPP location has a worker death, this case brings up an additional question: If OSHA has issued a fine but the matter is still under appeal, should the company be able to stay in the VPP?
Walking a fine line?
This fall, CPI first reported that a number of employee deaths at VPP locations hadn’t been recorded in OSHA’s VPP database.
Safety News Alert (SNA) noted that just days before CPI delivered its report, OSHA administrator David Michaels told attendees at the National Safety Council’s annual congress in Philadelphia that VPP was a “great program.”
In 2010, Michaels was calling for VPP to be funded through user fees paid by participating companies instead of federal government dollars.
When SNA asked Michaels about the apparent change in message from one year to the next, Michaels noted that funding for VPP had not changed.
In between his 2010 and 2011 statements, Republicans took over the U.S. House and gained more seats, although not a majority, in the Senate.
Michaels and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis had previously said that, with limited federal funds, they’d rather spend more on enforcement than voluntary assistance programs like VPP. In response to that, after the 2010 election, members of Congress introduced bills to make VPP a permanent part of OSHA.
The message to OSHA was clear: Don’t mess with a program (VPP) that many businesses liked.
It now appears that while OSHA was continuing to fund VPP at its usual levels, it was also investigating the situations that led to 80 fatalities at VPP sites.
If OSHA releases the results of its own investigation next year, it will set up an interesting debate for what appears to be hotly contested presidential and Congressional elections in 2012. Here are the possibilities:
- OSHA could declare VPP to be broken and move to scrap the program. This doesn’t appear to be the direction the agency is going in.
- OSHA could sit on the results of its own investigation until after the elections, hoping not to fan the flames of Republican lawmakers who have declared the current status of the agency as anti-business, or
- OSHA could take a middle ground approach, calling for significant changes in the program such as canceling the exemption VPP sites have from programmed OSHA inspections, increasing the requirements for companies to qualify for the program or requiring a financial contribution from participating companies.
What do you think about this situation? Does OSHA need to make significant changes to the VPP? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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Tags: Center for Public Integrity, David Michaels, Jordan Barab, VPP, worker deaths
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January 3rd, 2012 at 10:31 am
I think that the companies who are not participating in the VPP program at the expected level of excellence should be put on probation, suspended or removed from the program, based on the investigation of issues found at their facilities. There are several thousand companies in the VPP program that have improve their safety performance year over year. Why is this fact be ignored? VPP is not anti-business, if it were no one would participate. Hold the bad actors accountible don’t punish everyone for their problems. VPP have been under staffed and under funded for years. I think this is another ploy to minimize OSHA and other agencies so that government becomes less efficient and more pliable to special interest. If the participants fund the program as suggested, isn’t that a double tax on the participating companies? Seems like it to me. Reform it but, KEEP THE PROGRAM!
January 3rd, 2012 at 11:03 am
I wonder what percentage of work place deaths are happening in the Non-VPP sites vs. the VPP sites a study of that would reveal much. Also the areas that should be accessed are the areas-professions where the deaths/injuries happened also to compare the exact professions that are VPP certified vs the noncertified.
EX:
-All VPP certified organizations average compared to the same number of noncertified organizations (gross numbers).
-A comparison of the same VPP certified organizations to the same organizations without the designation of VPP (same as is size and profession/type of work or service or industry including the size of its staff and $ the organization has to work with)
January 3rd, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Don’t penalize the VPP companies who are giving their employees a safer place to work. If a company is not meeting the requirements, put them on probation and try to mentor them in making the needed improvements. If the improvements are not made, then remove their VPP status.
Although being a member of VPP exempts the company from unannounced inspections, KY does have the re-assessment every 3 years and it is very thorough. As a VPP site, we are expected to make improvements every time we are assessed and KY follows up when an issue is found. Since becoming a VPP site, OSHA has been at our facility more than they ever were before. A phone call or e-mail to KY OSHA VPP, and they are there for assistance, not a “safety cop”.
I would rather OSHA come on site and help us make improvements, than show up after an accident, when it is too late to protect the worker.
Possibly the OSHA VPP committees should follow the KY goup or participate in one of their reassessments.
January 3rd, 2012 at 1:16 pm
I agree the companies that are successful in the VPP program need to be recognized. However looking at where there are problems can tell us about where improvements need to be made.
OSHA should and needs to be a resource as well as an enforcement agency. That way we all can benefit from the free flow of ideas and the interpretation of data.
January 4th, 2012 at 9:38 am
VPP is a program that is used like other tools of compliance in the overall effort to provide a worker a safe and healthy place of work. There are unfortunately companies that are diligent to make sure they provide the safest work place possible. It is likely that a small percentage of the companies are doing what is necessary to stay in the VPP program on paper but each company is only as good as the weakest member of the workforce.
Statistics don’t lie those companies who have a culture that promotes a safe & healthy work place 100% of the time have a work population that will go out of their way to stop an unsafe act by anyone on the property. Conversely those companies that simply want the feather in their cap will overlook issues that could lead to an accident and injury as long as the job is done and the price was the lowest.
VPP sites should be willing to commit to 4 program inspections a year for the first 2 years with the understanding that if one citation is found they will not be eligible for the VPP status until they can demonstrate that they can be violation free for 2 years. Obviously this could be a similar to the ISO audit procedure where the participant pays to be audited. The auditors could be trained consultants recognized by OSHA and their peers as highly qualified to audit the facility. Such audits could then review not only the paperwork but spend time in the production areas of the company where they pick and chose the area or job.
January 4th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
OSHA use to be what Patricia describes KY OSHA VPP as. I’m a firm believer that positive breeds positive and negitive breeds negitive. OSHA needs to take a serious look at how they conduct business and change from a negitive to a positive.
January 5th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
The success of VPP all has to do with the Regional VPP Administrators. Good administrators have good results. See Region IV and VII for successful VPP programs. For an example of poor VPP performance due to a poor administrator see Region VI where they handed out VPP flags like candy during the Bush Administration.
Of course Barab lead a study against VPP. He feels the only way for companies to succesfully keep workers safe is to publicly shame them and pound them into submission. VPP goes against his fundamental belief system which is why you are going to see the program go away. The same thing happened with the National Environmental Performance Track (NEPT) through the EPA. It was defunded through the stroke of a pen and the participating companies were sent a letter saying that the program was dead.
Hard to take a study about a voluntary program lead by Barab seriously when he had the following to say about voluntary programs/alliances:
“We need to make it clear that the right to a safe workplace wasn’t bestowed upon us by concerned politicians or employers who were finally convinced that “Safety Pays.” The right to a safe workplace was won only after a long and bitter fight by workers, unions and public health advocates. It was soaked in the blood of hundreds of thousands of coal miners, factory and construction workers. And the current movement to transform the agency into nothing but a coordinator of voluntary alliances is a betrayal of that promise and those lives.”