10. Federal audit named OSHA among most challenged agencies

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General released several scathing reports in 2023 on what it sees as problems with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but one released in November garnered particular attention.

The Labor Department found that the agency faces “significant challenges in completing their mandates to ensure the protection of American workers’ safety and health.”

The report said the lapses were particularly noticeable in “high-risk industries such as health care, meatpacking, agriculture, construction, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, and underground and surface mining.”

The story about the report was the 10th-most-read workers compensation-related story on the Business Insurance website in 2023.

In a separate report to Congress, released in December, the OIG asserted that OSHA continues to fail to protect warehouse workers from injuries and needs better protocols for addressing complaints regarding worker safety.

Another OIG report in the summer pegged finances as a reason OSHA struggles to properly investigate employers. This followed reports in 2022 on the agency’s alleged failure to investigate hundreds of pandemic-related safety complaints. 

OSHA officials wrote in response to OIG’s reports that the agency was working to make improvements.

In June, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker reported that OSHA had added more than 600 employees since January 2022.