A “penalty” from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is usually just the opening offer in a negotiation, a starting point for the agency and the company in its crosshairs. Inevitably, the two parties whittle down the initial figure to a number that the offending company agrees to pay.
But a new report from the inspector general of the Labor Department, of which OSHA is a part, says that many of the cuts in penalties are made without cause.
The reductions in fines are handed out as an incentive to correct safety problems, but the report says that in practice the decreased penalties often did not lead companies to fix hazards.
“We found 4,791 employers with a history of serious violations had received penalty reductions of $86.6 million,” according to the report’s authors. “Half of these employers subsequently received reductions of $42.6 million on subsequent inspections where a similar standard was violated,” the authors added, saying that signaled that, in many cases, “the employer’s hazard correction may not have been comprehensive and company-wide.”
The inspector general examined penalties from inspections conducted from July, 2007, to June, 2009. According to the Center for Public Integrity , the report found that the initial penalty was reduced in 98 percent of the more than 140,000 cases.
As a result, the report found that more than $523 million in fines proposed by the agency were later reduced by more than $350 million. However, the report argues that more than a third of the reductions, or $127 million, may have been improper, including penalty cuts for small companies that weren’t merited because their violations were serious.
In response, OSHA accepted some of the report’s recommendations, but defended its policy of offering reductions to small businesses. It also said that the report exaggerated the size of the reductions because it did not take into account the adjustments the agency is required to make based on such factors as the employer’s past experience with violations and whether the employer has showed good faith.
The appeal process in OSHA court is an effective way to come to an agreement of payment by and with the affected parties. Many of OSHA’s penalties don’t fit the violation in each specific case. All courts do this and generally both sides are disappointed. Oh, by the way, that’s how we know it was a fair and unbiased judgement. Huffing and puffing by Washington D.C. again is a political event, not a call to action.