The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), while legally bound to a fine structure with limits, is seeking to raise its average fine from the $1,000 range to the $3,000 to $4,000 range while awaiting higher fine approval from Congress.

OSHA Director David Michaels announced on April 22 what the agency is calling its Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP), which replaces the current Enhanced Enforcement Program and takes effect in 45 days.

A concurrent OSHA announcement bemoaned the fact that fines have increased only once in 40 years, saying the agency is looking forward to the passage of Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA), which will increase the upper fine for serious violations from $7,000 to $12,000 and the top fine for willful violations from $70,000 to $250,000.

In the next 45 days, OSHA is conducting outreach to inform the nation’s businesses of its SVEP initiative and help them prepare.

Those companies wishing to stay fine-free should make sure they are in compliance with all of OSHA’s standards and regulations. Personnel Concepts offers a wide range of products to help you do so. Browse them today in our Web-based collection of OSHA Programs and Kits.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has released its strategic plan for 2010-2016 with the overall objective being "good jobs for everyone," in the words of Secretary Hilda Solis.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently held a Web chat to discuss its part in the DOL strategic plan, during which it characterized its overall plan in these words:

“OSHA is focusing on actively promoting safe and healthy working conditions for working men and women by: setting and enforcing workplace safety and health standards; delivering effective enforcement; providing outreach, education and compliance assistance; and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health.”

More specifically, OSHA officials, including Administrator David Michaels, said they will seek to increase the agency’s enforcement and regulatory capabilities and make its presence more felt in the workplace.

The DOL budget has already risen twice during the Obama administration, and new investigators have been hired across the department, including OSHA. In addition, if the Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA) passes, new enforcement powers and increased fines and penalties will be available to OSHA.

In short, it’s a good idea to make sure your workplace is OSHA-compliant, not just in terms of posters displayed properly but also in having a safety plan in place. For the latter, you can rely on Personnel Concepts’ Emergency Action Program CD-ROM Plan Creator, which will generate your plan for you with a few keystrokes on your computer.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has released its agenda for the coming year, and it has a few surprises to spring on American business.

First (for discussion’s sake), the DOL wants each paycheck to come with a stub or explanation of hours worked, overtime paid and everything else that went into the computation of the amount.

Next, it’s eyeing the resurrection of the ergonomics standard that was rejected early in this decade, and with David Michaels now firmly in charge of OSHA, that standard should be forthcoming.

The 2010 agenda includes a new standard for combustible dust as well.

Finally, the retired Beck Poster will be replaced by one with Barack Obama’s interpretation of workers’ rights on it (you know, join a union now).

Full details here.

The Senate, without a committee confirmation hearing or discussion on the floor, has approved David Michaels as Deputy Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, in other words, the chief of OSHA.

Michaels was confirmed along with a host of other nominees in a simple voice vote.

Michaels from the beginning was a controversial nominee who views ergonomics as a settled scientific issue and has said he will reinstate the previously withdrawn ergonomics standard in some form or another.

In the introduction to his book, Doubt Is Their Product, Michaels observes:

The vilification of any research that might threaten corporate interests as ‘junk science’ and the sanctification of its own bought-and-paid-for research as ’sound science’ is indeed Orwellian–and nothing less than standard operating procedure today. …

…At its heart, this book documents the ways in which product defense consultants have shaped and skewed the scientific literature, manufactured and magnified scientific uncertainty, and influenced policy decisions to the advantage of polluters and the manufacturers of dangerous products.

The question remains–does Michaels himself have any doubt in his consistently anti-corporate worldview? That’s the question his critics want answered.