OSHA steps up efforts to reform serial workplace safety violators

DENVER — Cracking down on repeat safety violators is an enforcement priority for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, says Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker.

Mr. Parker gave attendees at last month’s Safety ’24, the American Society of Safety Professionals’ annual conference, a bird’s eye view of the agency’s priorities in recent years.

One area of concern has been businesses with repeat safety issues — such as workers experiencing amputations due to unguarded machinery, he said.

“We are taking a more comprehensive approach where we are seeing the same issues over and over again, and in planning we’re taking more aggressive interventions to ensure maintenance and improve safety,” Mr. Parker said.

A particular focus is falls from heights in the construction industry, which account for the lion’s share of worker deaths annually.

“We are really hoping that we can finally bend the curve on what is really an epidemic of noncompliance, and that is the problem that we have year in and year out with workers dying needlessly because their employer has not properly implemented fall protection,” he said.

Trenching, a deadly hazard that leads to hundreds of deaths annually, is another area of concern that has led the agency to seek criminal prosecutions for repeat offenders, Mr. Parker said.

The agency in recent years has expanded its Severe Violator Program, targeting not just high-hazard industries.

The move to look at all industries with multiple and similar citations has led to progress, Mr. Parker said, citing the example of retailers Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, which have faced citations and penalties for a range of safety issues.

“As a result, those companies may have made significant safety investments or will,” he said. “They are reviewing their logistics and inventory controls. They’re implementing more worker participation and rapid response programs.”

Whistleblower protections are another focus. Over the past year and a half, the agency has reduced investigation timeframes from a high of more than 300 days to under 200 days on average, he said.

Mr. Parker said employers must have a “system in place where workers can
speak up.”

“They may very well not speak out because they’re afraid about their job. … You have to have procedures and processes that ensure that they cannot only speak up, but that it is your expectation that they will,” he said.

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Psychological health seen as key tool in curbing comp claims

Addressing workplace mental health challenges is the missing link in many employers’ plans to tackle the physical hazards that could lead to injuries and prolonged workers compensation claims, according to a panel of health and safety experts who discussed the current state of so-called psychosocial hazards.

Among the panelists who spoke at Safety ’24, the American Society of Safety Professionals’ annual conference, Carrie Patterson, executive vice president of human resources consultancy Patricia Omoqui Enterprises Inc., drew a comparison between a physical injury that might keep a worker off the job 13 weeks and the compounding that happens when there’s a psychosocial or “toxic” issue in the workplace.

“You leave for six months because the work environment is so challenging for you,” said Ms. Patterson, who is based in Glastonbury, Connecticut, and provides psychological counseling to companies aiming to create positive work environments.

Panelist David Daniels, Atlanta-based president and CEO of safety consultancy ID2 Solutions LLC, called the issue of creating mentally safe work environments “seminal” to safeguarding against physical risks.

“Psychosocial hazards … are just as real as physical hazards,” he said.

Psychosocial safety “informs how workers react to things,” he said. “It informs how they respond to things. It informs how they do things, what’s important to them and what’s not.

Ken Clayman, McLean, Virginia-based senior lead technical specialist with business consultant Booz Allen Hamilton Holdings Corp., said companies can use the same tools they use to identify physical hazards to address those considered psychosocial.

“We can go around and take a look at our operations, take a look at what the people are doing, and we can identify what may be of a psychological concern as much as we can look at what is of a physical concern,” he said. “We have to start looking at the people and looking at the conditions and the environments that they’re working in.”

Kahlilah Guyah, Austin, Texas-based founder and principal consultant at EHS Compliance Services Inc., said companies’ leaders can apply some strategies that are responsive to the mental needs of their workers, “indicating that, ‘We are here and we care about the people.’ This is where we set the example.”

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Fatal injuries derive from common causes

Most workplace fatalities have similar core elements that employers in high-risk industries can study to prevent similar disasters, according to industrial safety experts.

A push to study root causes of workplace fatalities grew out of a deadly methane gas explosion in 2023 in a coal mine in Kazakhstan operated by ArcelorMittal S.A., a steel and mining company based in Luxembourg, according to Mike Dwyer, the company’s corporate health, safety & security director, who spoke during a session at Safety ’24, the American Society of Safety Professionals’ annual conference.

“We wanted to build this model together so we can predict where the next fatality is going to happen,” said Kitchener, Ontario-based Mr. Dwyer, who worked to create a root-causes model with co-presenter Peter Susca, Wethersfield, Connecticut-based principal at Operational Excellence LLC, a consultancy that does business as OpX Safety.

The pair looked at other fatal incidents and found similar factors, such as overall organizational issues, including focusing on profits and not investing in equipment; poor management and accountability for safety; a work culture comfortable with hazards; and bad operational decisions.

They said fatalities in the workplace come down to six elements: the presence of a hazard; exposure to the hazard while working; ineffective controls when facing the hazard; an organization not assessing those three elements; an immediate change in the work process, such as a problem with equipment or staffing; and poor overall management.

Mr. Susca said it is common for employers to blame workers when there is a fatality — or for companies to not address hazards and possible hazards until someone is killed. Usually, the issue is in the organization, he said.

“When you look at organizational factors, they remain the same,” Mr. Dwyer said. “It’s the lack of investment. It’s procurement, making decisions that are not in alignment with safety. It’s bringing contractors in at cheap prices, not having the best contractors. It’s all these types of decisions.”