Occupational Safety and Health

In September 1991, 25 workers died and more than 50 others were injured in a fire at a North Carolina chicken processing plant, in large part because the fire doors had been locked. The plant had never been inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or by the state. OSHA's oversight of state-run safety and health programs continues to be plagued by substantial weaknesses. OSHA still has little information about the outcomes and effectiveness of either its own program or state programs. Other shortcomings include inadequate measures of program activities and no specific program activity goals, no requirement for states to do internal audits or self-assessments that would allow OSHA to consider these results in its evaluations, and a lack of follow-up procedures for ensuring that states correct problems in programs that OSHA has flagged. Some states have adopted unique program features that OSHA does not have. These include requiring comprehensive worksite safety and health programs and using worksite-specific injury and illness data. Two other state program features warrant further OSHA analysis to determine whether they should be added to OSHA law: (1) coverage of state and local government workers and (2) shutdown authority in imminent danger situations.

GAO found that: (1) OSHA has little information from which to make judgments about the outcomes and results of state programs; (2) while OSHA has made some improvements, it does not set priorities for key program measures, conduct annual audits, or follow up to ensure that states correct problems; (3) nine states require comprehensive worksite safety and health programs, which GAO has recommended that Congress consider as a federal requirement; (4) 14 states use worksite-specific injury and illness data in their occupational safety and health enforcement programs; (5) using worksite-specific data could improve OSHA inspection targeting, education and training, and program effectiveness evaluations; (6) OSHA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are working on ways to allow OSHA access to BLS worksite-specific data without compromising the independence and confidentiality of the BLS data collection process; (7) some states have greater authority to take action in imminent-danger situations than does OSHA, but GAO could not determine the consequences of this limitation on OSHA authority; and (8) all state-operated programs cover state and local government employees, while OSHA is legally prohibited from doing so.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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