Pandemic workplace safety duties coupled with a steady drop in the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors since 2014 have challenged the agency, legal experts say.
“It's objectively true that OSHA has been shrinking, and the staff has been shrinking year over year for a while — really going back to the (2013) sequestration and some government shutdowns during the Obama administration,” said Eric Conn, Washington-based founding partner of Conn Maciel Carey LLP.
Mr. Conn referred to a Dec. 13 report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General on the department’s top management and performance challenges that found the decline in inspectors from a high of 860 in 2014 to 750 in 2021 had made it difficult for OSHA to protect workers at an estimated 8 million worksites.
The annual report followed one in November in which the OIG said OSHA “did not sufficiently protect workers from COVID-19 health hazards” during the pandemic.
Jessica E. Martinez, Los Angeles-based co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, said there “is an urgent need for OSHA to add more inspectors, more whistleblower investigators and more staff throughout the agency to effectively enforce our safety laws and prevent unnecessary injuries, illnesses and fatalities.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released its annual Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, finding “that a worker dies every 101 minutes from a...
For months, President Donald Trump and his allies have vowed to destroy progressive nonprofits, falsely claiming that they fund and support political violence and terrorism in the U.S. But this we...