Countywide : OSHA Chief Details Plans to Get Tougher

Criminal penalties against employers who purposely endanger the health of workers are grossly inadequate, the U.S. assistant secretary of labor for occupational health and safety said Thursday.

“Some folks are genuinely offended that it is a more serious federal offense to harass a wild burro on federal land than it is to kill or seriously injure a worker through willful neglect of safety and health,” said Joseph A. Dear, eliciting applause from those attending the annual meeting of the American Industrial Hygiene Assn.

Addressing the group at the Anaheim Convention Center, Dear, who took the helm of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration last year, described his plans to strengthen environmental standards and reform the federal agency designated to protect the health and safety of American workers.

Noting that OSHA and its state counterparts have a combined 2,100 compliance officers to monitor 6 million workplaces in the nation, he said, “This gap between mission and resources is the principal drive behind the necessity to reinvent OSHA.”

Dear said that under his direction OSHA is reviewing all segments of industry to target enforcement efforts at work sites that pose the most hazards. “Let’s pick out the worst actors,” he said.