The Ministry of Labor and Employment is strengthening its supervisory activities under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There has been a 20% increase in OSHA inspectors under the Biden administration and the implementation of several targeted enforcement programs aimed at curbing violations that put workers at risk related to falls, trenches and heat exposure.
There are also changes to how OSHA calculates fines: instance-by-instance citations that could see employers fined for each instance of a safety violation, potentially adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines — such as an individual fine for each worker who does not wear a helmet.
There are also policy changes that make it easier to get on the agency̵
7;s list of serious violators, which comes with higher fines and more scrutiny of other facilities.“All this is to say is that OSHA is becoming much more aggressive in its citations,” said Courtney Malveaux, Richmond, Va.-based principal and co-leader of the workplace safety and health practice group at Jackson Lewis PC and former Virginia labor commissioner.
“These previously four-figure quotes are now coming back as six-figure quotes.”
The following slide is a road map of the OSHA investigation process.
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