OSHA is two-thirds of the way through the federal 2009 fiscal year. How are inspections stacking up this year?
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.