Workplace Safety and Health
OSHA Can Strengthen Enforcement through Improved Program Management Gao ID: GAO-03-45 November 22, 2002The United States has made great progress in improving working conditions since the construction of the Empire State Building. Yet, since the early 1990s, over 50,000 workers have died from work-related accidents and millions experience work-related injuries or illnesses each year. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the primary federal agency responsible for protecting workplace safety and health. GAO was asked to assess how well OSHA was able to target its enforcement resources on hazardous worksites, measure its accomplishments, and ensure inspection staff quality.
OSHA has taken important steps toward targeting its enforcement resources on hazardous worksites, measure its accomplishments, and enhance the professionalism of its staff. However, these systems could be strengthened by better information and mechanisms that would make targeting efforts more efficient, measurement more precise, and training efforts more effective. OSHA's targeting processes have not fully ensured that it identifies hazardous worksites for priority inspection because its worksite-targeting programs lack the necessary data to effectively identify high-hazard worksites or those with hazards under OSHA's jurisdiction. Also, OSHA's measurement efforts did not accurately demonstrate its impact on workplace safety and health because, for example, it used national data on injuries and illnesses to measure its progress in achieving strategic goals even though only 31 states are covered by these goals. Finally, OSHA's efforts to enhance the quality of its inspection workforce have the potential to improve enforcement, but the anticipated outcomes could be jeopardized by a lack of necessary mechanisms, such as a training directive that reflects current plans, or a comprehensive database that tracks training or skills obtained by inspection staff.
RecommendationsOur 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.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-03-45, Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA Can Strengthen Enforcement through Improved Program Management
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Highlights of GAO-03-45, a report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on
Workforce
Protections, Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of
Representatives
WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH: OSHA Can Strengthen Enforcement Through
Improved
Program Management:
Why GAO Did This Study:
The United States has made great progress in improving working
conditions
since the construction of the Empire State Building. (See graphic.)
Yet, since
the early 1990s, over 50,000 workers have died from work-related
accidents
and millions experience work-related injuries or illnesses each year.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the primary
federal
agency responsible for protecting workplace safety and health. GAO was
asked
to assess how well OSHA was able to target its enforcement resources on
hazardous worksites, measure its accomplishments, and ensure inspection
staff
quality.
What GAO Found:
OSHA has taken important steps toward targeting its enforcement
resources on
hazardous worksites, measure its accomplishments, and enhance the
professionalism of its staff. However, these systems could be
strengthened
by better information and mechanisms that would make targeting efforts
more
efficient, measurement more precise, and training efforts more
effective.
OSHA‘s targeting processes have not fully ensured that it identifies
hazardous worksites for priority inspection because its worksite-
targeting
programs lack the necessary data to effectively identify high-hazard
worksites
or those with hazards under OSHA‘s jurisdiction. Also, OSHA‘s
measurement
efforts did not accurately demonstrate its impact on workplace safety
and
health because, for example, it used national data on injuries and
illnesses
to measure its progress in achieving strategic goals even though only
31
states are covered by these goals. Finally, OSHA‘s efforts to enhance
the
quality of its inspection workforce have the potential to improve
enforcement, but the anticipated outcomes could be jeopardized by a
lack
of necessary mechanisms, such as a training directive that reflects
current
plans, or a comprehensive database that tracks training or skills
obtained
by inspection staff.
[See PDF for figure]
[End of figure]
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends ways that OSHA can get the most out of its targeting
programs,
enhance its ability to measure its impact, and help ensure long-term
success
of its efforts to enhance inspector quality.
While OSHA expressed concerns about some of the material in the report,
it generally agreed to act on our recommendations.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-45.
To view the full report, including the scope and methodology, click on
the
link above. For more information, contact Robert E. Robertson at (202)
512-
7215 or robertsonr@gao.gov.
Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections,
Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of Representatives:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
November 2002:
Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA Can Strengthen Enforcement through
Improved Program Management:
GAO-03-45:
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
OSHA‘s Targeting Procedures May Not Effectively Identify Hazardous
Worksites for Inspection:
OSHA‘s Measurement Efforts Have Not Accurately Demonstrated Its Impact:
OSHA‘s Efforts to Enhance Inspector Quality Have Potential to Improve
Enforcement, but Anticipated Outcomes Could Be Jeopardized:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Training Databases Used by OSHA‘s Regional and
Area Offices:
Appendix II: Comments from the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration:
GAO Comments:
Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: OSHA‘s 3-by-5 Strategic Plan Impact Goals (1997 to 2002):
Table 2: OSHA‘s Procedures for Identifying Industries, Hazards, or
Worksites to Target:
Table 3: Training Databases Used By OSHA Regional and Area Offices:
Figure:
Figure 1: Injury and Illness Rates for 3-by-5 Industries, 1993-2000:
Abbreviations:
BLS: Bureau of Labor Statistics:
GPRA: Government Performance and Results Act of 1993:
IDP: individual development plans:
IMIS: Integrated Management Information System:
LEP: Local Emphasis Program:
NEP: National Emphasis Program:
ODI: OSHA Data Initiative:
OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration:
OTI: OSHA Training Institute:
SST: site-specific targeting:
United States General Accounting Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
November 22, 2002:
The Honorable Charlie Norwood
Chairman, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections
Committee on Education and the Workforce
House of Representatives:
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Since the early 1990s, over 50,000 U.S. workers have lost their lives
in workplace accidents. Although workplace fatality and injury rates
have improved significantly over the last decade, the Department of
Labor‘s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) continues
to strive to reduce work-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities
for the country‘s 120 million workers. In carrying out this mission,
OSHA faces a number of challenges. As with many other organizations,
OSHA seeks to ensure that it (1) focuses its limited resources on those
workplaces most likely to cause worker injury, illness, or death; (2)
shows that its efforts make worksites safer; and (3) has a highly
trained workforce capable of carrying out its mission effectively.
OSHA‘s efforts to address these challenges are made more difficult by
the fact that it shares responsibility for workplace safety and health
with numerous other entities. For example, while OSHA enforces safety
and health regulations in 31 ’federal OSHA states,“ it has delegated
its enforcement authority to protect workplace safety and health to 23
’state-plan states,“ where state agencies have assumed responsibility
for establishing their own goals and enforcing safety and health
regulations.[Footnote 1]
As agreed with your office, we assessed the extent to which (1) OSHA‘s
worksite-specific targeting processes ensure that OSHA effectively
identifies hazardous worksites, (2) the agency‘s measurement efforts
allow it to accurately demonstrate its impact on workplace safety, and
(3) its human capital efforts to enhance inspector quality are likely
to improve enforcement. Our work focused on the inspection and
enforcement activities within the federal OSHA states.
To address the first two objectives, we identified the procedures and
data OSHA used to develop its targets and measure its results. We then
obtained and analyzed relevant historical data from (1) the Department
of Labor‘s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on workplace injuries,
illnesses, and fatalities;[Footnote 2] (2) OSHA‘s integrated management
information system (IMIS) inspection database, which compiles activity
information on worksite inspections conducted by OSHA; and (3) the OSHA
data initiative (ODI) database, through which OSHA targets specific
worksites for priority inspection. We also reviewed with experts OSHA‘s
procedures and methods to measure its efforts on workplace safety and
health. For the third objective, we reviewed OSHA‘s recent efforts to
restructure its local offices. We also reviewed its plans for providing
training to its inspection staff and assessed whether OSHA has in place
the policy directives and database systems needed to ensure the success
of these efforts.[Footnote 3] We obtained OSHA personnel‘s views on
these efforts through interviews with officials at 9 of the 10 OSHA
regional offices and 17 of OSHA‘s 85 area offices.[Footnote 4] For all
objectives, we interviewed OSHA and other Department of Labor
officials. We conducted our work in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards between December 2001 and October 2002.
Results in Brief:
OSHA‘s targeting processes have not fully ensured that it effectively
identifies hazardous worksites for priority inspection. Specifically,
OSHA‘s efforts to target worksites in the construction industry rely on
a database that does not permit OSHA to accurately identify smaller
worksites for inspection. Consequently, OSHA‘s area offices tend to
select larger construction worksites to visit, which experts and
several OSHA officials believe are generally safer than the smaller
worksites. OSHA is currently studying ways to improve construction
targeting. In the meantime, some of OSHA‘s local offices are targeting
small construction sites on their own. Also, OSHA‘s efforts to target
high-hazard worksites across other industries rely on employer-provided
information that may be unsuitable for accurate targeting. In about 50
percent of the worksites identified, inspectors were unable to conduct
inspections or did not find any serious violations. Officials from
OSHA‘s regional and area offices we interviewed expressed concern about
the ability of this program to efficiently target hazardous worksites.
Several weaknesses in OSHA‘s measurement efforts have affected its
ability to accurately demonstrate its impact on workplace safety, a
difficult, but nonetheless important activity. First, OSHA relied on
national injury and illness statistics compiled by BLS to measure
progress toward strategic plan goals, despite the fact that OSHA‘s
strategic plan only covers the 31 federal OSHA states. OSHA has not
made use of BLS data that would allow it to look at injury and illness
rates for these 31 states combined, although BLS says it could make the
data available at reasonable cost. Second, the methods OSHA used to
measure progress toward its strategic goals potentially misstated its
accomplishments. For example, the way it measured declines in injury
and illness rates included declines that occurred before its strategic
plan was implemented. Finally, when assessing its impact, OSHA did not
fully account for many relevant factors outside its control that may
have affected changes. For example, in reporting that it exceeded goals
for reducing fatalities in the construction industry, OSHA did not
acknowledge that some portion of these fatalities might have been due
to hazards under the authority of others, such as the Department of
Transportation. As a result, reductions in such fatalities would have
no direct relationship to OSHA‘s efforts.
OSHA‘s efforts to enhance the quality of its inspection workforce can
possibly improve enforcement, but anticipated outcomes could be
jeopardized by several factors. OSHA has restructured its local offices
into multidisciplinary teams (i.e., teams comprised of safety
inspectors and health inspectors), with team leaders responsible for
overseeing the work of those teams. While this change has fostered
greater collaboration between safety and health inspectors, the
creation of these teams has, in some locations, led to insufficient
internal controls in the supervisory review process. For example, in
some cases where team leaders are safety inspectors, they may lack the
expertise needed to review case files that support health inspectors‘
citations. This practice could lead to inconsistency in citations or
citations being made without the proper justification. In addition,
while OSHA‘s plans to upgrade the training provided to its inspection
force have promise, OSHA faces two primary obstacles to success. First,
OSHA‘s training directive does not reflect the agency‘s current
training plans, so there is no assurance that its current training
plans will have organizational support over the long term. Second, OSHA
lacked the necessary data to assess whether training contributes to
agency performance because it did not use a single, comprehensive
database to efficiently track the training and skills obtained by its
inspection force.
We are recommending that OSHA strengthen management of its enforcement
activities by improving targeting and measurement procedures and by
helping ensure the long-term success of the agency‘s efforts to enhance
inspector quality. While OSHA expressed concerns about some of the
material in this report, it generally agreed to act on our
recommendations.
Background:
The Occupational Safety and Health Act states that it is congressional
policy to ’assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the
Nation safe and healthful working conditions ..“[Footnote 5] In
fiscal year 2002, OSHA pursued this mandate with about $443 million and
2,316 employees, including 1,123 inspectors.[Footnote 6] Despite this
broad mandate, OSHA does not have complete authority over all worksites
in this country. For example, through the appropriations process,
Congress has placed restrictions on OSHA‘s enforcement activities
regarding small farming operations and small employers in low hazard
industries. Also, pursuant to the act, OSHA has delegated federal
enforcement responsibility to 23 state and territorial governments that
carry out their own programs.[Footnote 7] OSHA has provided half the
funding for these programs to state-plan states, which must have
program standards that are ’at least as effective“ as the federal
program. In other cases, federal agencies other than OSHA have
jurisdiction over particular workplaces or hazards.[Footnote 8] For
example, the Department of Labor‘s Mine Safety and Health
Administration is responsible for ensuring the safety of mining
worksites, while transportation-related hazards are generally within
the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation.
OSHA also relies on BLS to provide it with data on injuries, illnesses,
and fatalities. Since 1992, BLS has surveyed a sample of approximately
180,000 employers and asked them to report information on the number of
work-related injuries and illnesses occurring at their worksites. This
information comes from injury and illness records that private industry
employers are required to maintain. From this information, BLS
calculates injury and illness rates. BLS identifies fatalities from a
census of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and New York City,
which report on all work-related fatalities within their jurisdictions.
BLS requires the reporting entities to corroborate reports on
fatalities by obtaining multiple sources of information, such as OSHA
fatality information, death certificates, medical examiners‘ reports,
media reports, and workers‘ compensation documents. BLS makes injury,
illness, and fatality data available at the national as well as at the
state level.
To ensure that it makes the best use of its resources, OSHA, like other
federal agencies, established strategic goals that drive agency efforts
and has begun to measure the attainment of those goals.[Footnote 9] In
OSHA‘s 1997-2002 strategic plan, it identified an overarching goal to
’[i]mprove workplace safety and health for all workers, as evidenced by
fewer hazards, reduced exposures, and fewer injuries, illnesses, and
fatalities.“ OSHA characterized this overarching goal as the
cornerstone of its enforcement program.[Footnote 10] According to OSHA,
it planned on ’focusing . . . [a]gency resources on the most prevalent
types of workplace injuries and illnesses, the most hazardous
industries, and the most hazardous workplaces.“ OSHA identified
specific areas that it believed were the most hazardous and by which
OSHA would measure its progress. These specific areas, as shown in
table 1, focused on three hazards and five industries or industry
sectors (which are subsets of larger industries), and are known as
OSHA‘s ’3-by-5 goals.“ OSHA also identified a goal to reduce fatalities
in the construction industry by 15 percent and reduce injuries and
illnesses by 20 percent in 100,000 workplaces where OSHA initiates an
intervention.
Table 1: OSHA‘s 3-by-5 Strategic Plan Impact Goals (1997 to 2002):
Goal: Reduce three of the most prevalent types of workplace injuries
and causes of illnesses by 15 percent in selected industries and
occupations.; Targeted areas: Hazards.
Targeted areas: * Amputations.
Targeted areas: * Exposure to lead.
Targeted areas: * Exposure to silica.
Goal: Reduce injuries and illnesses by 15 percent in five industries
characterized by high-hazard workplaces.; Targeted areas: Industries or
industry sectors.
Targeted areas: * Construction industry.
Targeted areas: * Food processing.
Targeted areas: * Logging.
Targeted areas: * Nursing homes.
Targeted areas: * Shipyards.
Source: OSHA Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 1997 to 2002 and
Department of Labor Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1999.
[End of table]
Because GPRA applies only to federal agencies, the 23 state-plan states
are not required to adopt these goals. OSHA asked these states to
establish industry and hazard goals similar to OSHA‘s 3-by-5 goals
relevant to the worksites in their respective states. In some cases,
the state-plan states selected hazards or industries that mirrored the
federal ones; in other cases, they did not.
Recognizing that its 3-by-5 goals would probably not include every
hazard and industry that would prove dangerous to workers over the 5-
year duration of the strategic plan, OSHA established various other
mechanisms through which it could identify areas that pose hazards to
workers. Through national emphasis programs (NEP), OSHA headquarters
has identified industries or hazards deserving priority attention from
its area offices. In the last several years, OSHA has averaged about 10
NEPs annually. Some NEPs have reflected areas selected in the strategic
plan, while others have focused on other areas (e.g., the petrochemical
industry) not in the strategic plan. While OSHA provides direction to
its area offices for implementing NEPs, the area offices have
considerable flexibility in selecting actual worksites. In addition,
area offices can also use local emphasis programs (LEP) to highlight
industries or hazards within their jurisdictions that they believe are
hazardous. (See table 2.):
OSHA also has two national targeting programs that are aimed at
identifying worksites for priority inspection. First, as shown in table
2, OSHA has a targeting program that relies on data from the F.W. Dodge
Report for identifying worksites in the construction industry. Second,
OSHA has a site-specific targeting program (SST), which identifies a
list of high-hazard worksites in other industries through its OSHA data
initiative. OSHA‘s targeting efforts must be carried out on a neutral
and objective basis, in accordance with legal requirements.
Table 2: OSHA‘s Procedures for Identifying Industries, Hazards, or
Worksites to Target:
Targeting effort: NEP; Process followed: Based on national information,
OSHA headquarters identifies key industries, industry sectors, or
hazards that regional and area offices may target. (Over the last few
years, OSHA‘s NEPs have covered petrochemical, poultry processing, and
nursing homes.); Regional or area offices develop a particular strategy
for targeting workplaces in these areas.
Targeting effort: LEP; Process followed: Based on information for its
locality, an area or regional office may decide that an industry,
industry sector, or hazard is particularly dangerous and seek approval
to identify it as an LEP. (In fiscal year 2001, there were over 100
LEPs, ranging from residential construction to sawmills.); Area and
regional offices develop a particular strategy for targeting workplaces
in these areas.
Targeting effort: Construction Industry; Process followed: OSHA local
offices ask the University of Tennessee‘s Construction Industry Policy
and Research Center to provide them with monthly lists of randomly
selected nonresidential construction projects scheduled to start in the
next 60 days on the basis of particular criteria (usually related to
project value) developed by the local office.[A]; To develop these
lists, the center applies a statistical model to data contained in the
F.W. Dodge Report, which is initially generated by the McGraw-Hill
Companies. The information provided to local offices includes the
predicted start and completion dates of the projects. Since
construction sites are temporary, local offices need this information
to plan inspections.; Local offices then visit construction sites on
the list.
Targeting effort: ODI/SST; Process followed: As part of the ODI begun
in 1998, OSHA identifies various industries that have an injury and
illness rate above a predetermined level, as well as other industries
that it believes are hazardous.[B]; OSHA asks Dun and Bradstreet
Corporation to provide it with specific information (such as employer
names and addresses) for approximately 140,000 worksites with 40 or
more employees from these industries.; OSHA selects about 80,000
worksites that it believes have a strong potential for being hazardous
based on the relative hazardousness of their industries. OSHA contacts
each of these worksites and asks them to provide their most recent
annual injury and illness data.; Of these 80,000 worksites, OSHA then
selects about 14,000 that it considers to be the most hazardous and
sends them a letter informing them that they might receive a compliance
inspection. OSHA provides 3,000 of these worksite names to area offices
for priority inspection.[C] These worksites constitute the actual SST
list.
[A] The University of Tennessee‘s Construction Industry Policy and
Research Center also maintains the Dodge Data Lines, which provide OSHA
with information on residential construction projects. Access to the
Dodge Data Lines database is included in the price OSHA pays for the
F.W. Dodge Report data.
[B] In past years, OSHA excluded the construction industry from
consideration. OSHA now plans to include construction in this process.
[C] OSHA sends this list only to its area offices in federal OSHA
states. These area offices are expected to visit all SST worksites
identified; however, any office that does not have the resources to
inspect all worksites on the original list may use a random process to
select a subset of these worksites for inspection. OSHA sends
information on additional worksites in state-plan states to the
appropriate state agencies. All state-plan states participate in this
process except Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, and Wyoming.
Source: OSHA.
[End of table]
As another way to help ensure that its resources are well used, OSHA
has restructured local office operations. Before fiscal year 1997, area
offices were organized in single-discipline teams that responded to
worker complaints and conducted planned inspections. Starting in fiscal
year 1997, OSHA reorganized its local offices into multidisciplinary
teams comprised of both safety inspectors[Footnote 11] and health
inspectors. These teams specialized in either responsive activities
(i.e., responding to worker complaints, accidents, or serious injuries;
or acting on referrals from other agencies) or planned activities, such
as conducting planned inspections and providing employers with
compliance assistance (i.e., various efforts to help employers who
voluntarily seek to comply with OSHA regulations). To assist these
teams, OSHA placed a compliance assistance specialist at each area
office who provides services such as helping employers correct hazards
identified during inspections. OSHA also instituted new procedures that
permitted area offices to expedite the process for responding to
informal worker complaints by allowing inspectors to resolve complaints
by phone or fax without visiting the worksite.
OSHA has also improved training opportunities for its inspection
workforce. The agency has expanded course offerings available to
inspectors at the OSHA Training Institute (OTI) and through satellite
delivered and web-based training. In addition, OTI is revising its
curriculum to prepare new inspectors both for their new jobs and for
professional certification in either safety, health, or as an engineer.
The agency has also developed a plan to assist experienced inspectors
to obtain professional certification, should they choose to do so, and
to retain professional certifications already achieved. The curriculum
for professional certification will vary considerably depending on the
type of certification sought by the inspector and the inspector‘s
current experience and level of training. OSHA‘s certification
assistance also includes paying for preparation materials and
certification examination fees and making time available at work for
staff to study. Concurrently, OSHA managers are using an individual
development plan (IDP) process to help inspectors identify training
needs and select appropriate training opportunities.
OSHA‘s Targeting Procedures May Not Effectively Identify Hazardous
Worksites for Inspection:
The targeting processes that OSHA used have not fully ensured that the
agency effectively identifies hazardous worksites for priority
inspection. Specifically, when targeting the construction industry,
OSHA relied on a database that did not adequately identify the smaller,
potentially more hazardous worksites. In the meantime, however, OSHA
area offices have taken actions on their own to target small
construction sites. Also, the efficiency of OSHA‘s efforts to target
high-hazard worksites across other industries through its SST program
may be limited by faulty information that caused OSHA to send
inspectors to worksites that were either not hazardous or that had
hazards that were outside of OSHA‘s control.
Current Construction Industry Targeting Biased toward Larger Worksites:
OSHA‘s current construction industry targeting procedure has not
provided local offices with adequate information on smaller
construction worksites. OSHA relies on information from the F.W. Dodge
Report database, provided by the University of Tennessee, to identify
construction worksites for potential inspection. This database provides
selected information on each construction site, including the projected
start and completion dates. However, the start and completion dates,
which are added to the database at the University of Tennessee, are
often erroneous for small construction sites.
Since they had more confidence in the information the database provided
on larger worksites, OSHA‘s area offices generally selected larger
construction worksites to inspect. About half of the area office
directors we interviewed said they do not request information on
smaller construction sites through the F.W. Dodge Report process.
Several local office directors told us that, when relying on the
database to identify small construction worksites, they would only send
inspectors to areas where there were multiple worksites in close
proximity in the hope of finding at least one that would be available
for inspection. Knowledgeable experts and officials within and outside
OSHA, including area office officials, saw this as problematic because
larger construction worksites are generally safer than smaller ones,
although they acknowledge that conclusive data to demonstrate this are
unavailable.
OSHA officials acknowledge that the F.W. Dodge process can be improved
to better identify high-hazard construction worksites and are
undertaking efforts to identify ways to improve the construction
targeting process. OSHA has asked the University of Tennessee to study
all factors, including size, that may lead to injuries and illnesses in
construction in order to determine the relative level of hazard
represented by individual construction worksites. As of July 2002, the
University of Tennessee had yet to initiate work on this study. This
effort should help OSHA use more sophisticated criteria to select the
most hazardous construction worksites for priority inspection, but it
does not aim to address the immediate bias toward targeting larger
construction worksites. To address current problems, we found that
several of the local offices were using various methods to supplement
the F.W. Dodge Report data to better target smaller construction
worksites. Eight of the 17 area office directors we interviewed stated
that they relied on more informal criteria and LEP initiatives to
target smaller construction workplaces. For example, in
1999-2000, four area offices developed LEPs for residential
construction worksites because office personnel were seeing increasing
numbers of fatalities or injuries occurring at these sites. These local
offices believed their efforts were successful in locating the smaller,
more hazardous worksites. However, not all area offices had established
local emphasis programs for smaller construction worksites.
SST Program Does Not Effectively Identify Hazardous Worksites:
The SST program is limited in its ability to effectively identify
hazardous worksites.[Footnote 12] Our review of OSHA‘s own IMIS
inspection database found that for about half the worksites identified
through this process, inspectors were unable to do an inspection or, if
they did, cited no serious violations. While OSHA headquarters
officials have not analyzed why this occurs, our review of IMIS as well
as interviews with area office directors indicate that these outcomes
could result from faulty information that caused OSHA to send
inspectors to worksites that were either not hazardous or that had
hazards that were outside of OSHA‘s control.
In some cases, OSHA received outdated or incorrect information about
the establishment itself (i.e., name, location, nature of business, or
number of employees). As a result, inspectors may have been unable to
conduct an inspection. In other cases, OSHA received miscalculated
information about the employer‘s injury and illness rate. In these
situations, inspectors visiting worksites determined from an inspection
of its records that the actual injury and illness rate was not high
enough for the employer to qualify for an inspection.[Footnote 13] We
found, based on inspection data from OSHA‘s IMIS database, that
inspectors performed no inspection or just a records inspection (i.e.,
a review of the employer‘s injury and illness records) for about 17
percent of the worksites identified on the original SST list.
In other cases where the information on the worksite injury or illness
rates was correct, the data collected may still have been otherwise
unsuitable for efficiently targeting those high-hazard worksites where
OSHA can have an effect. In collecting information for this program,
OSHA asked employers for only 1 year of injury and illness data. Area
office officials we interviewed said that in some cases, this 1-year
rate was an outlier that did not reflect general worksite operations.
Moreover, the data OSHA collected were generally 2 years old before
inspectors conducted the inspection. As a result, employers might have
taken actions, such as using OSHA‘s consultation program,[Footnote 14]
to improve working conditions by the time the inspector arrived. Also,
the injuries and illnesses may have been caused by workplace hazards
OSHA does not address.[Footnote 15] Again, using IMIS, we found that
for about 17 percent of worksites on the SST list, inspectors found no
violations. In another 14 percent, inspectors found no serious
violations.
Generally, officials from OSHA‘s regional and area offices we
interviewed expressed concern about the ability of the SST program to
reach those worksites with hazards that inspectors can address. Over
half stated that the program did not identify a sufficient number of
employers with serious violations to warrant their participation. For
example, at one local office, we were told that 35 percent of worksites
on the list were not cited for a violation. They noted that OSHA spends
significant time and energy to develop the SST list. They also noted
that significantly fewer resources are spent identifying worksites
under national or local emphasis programs, yet they appear to be more
successful in identifying serious violations. Our review of IMIS data
on the results of LEP inspections found that over
60 percent of inspections had serious violations.[Footnote 16] Also,
our review of reports from area offices on the results of their LEP
efforts identified anecdotal information about the success of LEP
investigations for reaching the most hazardous worksites.
In contrast to the views expressed by regional and area officials, OSHA
headquarters officials noted that a 50 percent serious violation rate
could be acceptable if it meant that employers had actually improved
working conditions between the time they were notified of a possible
inspection and the time the inspection actually took place.[Footnote
17] However, there is insufficient information to determine whether
this violation rate should be interpreted as a positive sign that
employers are taking action, or rather an indication that OSHA has not
reached the most hazardous worksites.
Additionally, there is insufficient information available to know what
impact the SST program has on reducing injuries and illnesses. First,
OSHA has little data on injury and illness rates for the period after
the SST inspections occurred. Having this information could help OSHA
identify changes that happened after an inspection took place. Such an
analysis would be imperfect since other intervening factors may have
influenced injury and illness rates, but the results might still be
useful. Moreover, OSHA did not establish a comparison group of
employers whose worksites were equally hazardous, but were not selected
for inspections. Developing such a comparison group has potential to
help OSHA address the problem presented by intervening factors. There
are several possibilities for a comparison group, including employers
from the original ODI list that were not selected to be on the SST
list, or similar types of employers located in state-plan states. We
acknowledge that there are many factors to be considered in developing
a comparison group. One expert we interviewed suggested that it might
be difficult to use the ODI database for both targeting and evaluation
and suggested that OSHA develop a similar database of establishments to
be used purely for evaluating SST‘s effectiveness.
OSHA‘s Measurement Efforts Have Not Accurately Demonstrated Its Impact:
Several weaknesses in OSHA‘s measurement efforts affected its ability
to accurately demonstrate its impact on workplace safety. To measure
progress toward its strategic plan goals, OSHA relied on national
injury and illness statistics rather than on data specific to those
states covered by OSHA‘s strategic plan. Moreover, the methods OSHA
used to measure its progress may have misstated its accomplishments.
Finally, when assessing its impact, OSHA did not account for many
relevant factors outside its control that may have affected changes in
the number of work-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
National Data Do Not Provide a Reliable Picture of OSHA‘s Impact:
By using national data, OSHA lost the opportunity to understand what is
happening with regard to injuries and illnesses in the states covered
by its strategic plan. According to OSHA officials, available data did
not allow them to measure changes in injury and illness rates for all
federal OSHA states combined. In about 10 federal OSHA states, the
amount of data BLS collects about injuries and illnesses is
insufficient to allow the information to be generalized to the entire
state. However, BLS uses the information from these 10 states in
calculating its national estimate of workplace injuries and illnesses.
OSHA officials told us that the lack of data from these states
precluded BLS from making injury and illness estimates for all federal
OSHA states combined. Nonetheless, according to BLS officials,
available data from these 10 states could be combined with data from
the other federal OSHA states to provide an overall estimate of injury
and illness rates for the combined federal OSHA states. They said that
this could be done at little or no additional cost to OSHA, but it may
take up to a year to fully generate and test the program needed to
produce this estimate, although some information could be made
available sooner.
OSHA‘s Methods for Measuring Performance May Have Misstated Its
Accomplishments:
OSHA used methods to measure its progress in reducing injury and
illness rates in the industries and hazards highlighted in its
strategic plan that may have misstated its accomplishments. More
specifically, to measure its progress in achieving its strategic plan
goals, OSHA compares the most recent injury and illness data to a 1993
through 1995 baseline. For example, in its 2001 annual report, OSHA
compared calendar year 2000 injury and illness data (the latest
information available from BLS) with the same data for 1993 through
1995. Based on this comparison, OSHA reported that injury and illness
rates declined by 26 percent in shipyards; 18 percent in food
processing; 9 percent in nursing homes; 36 percent in logging; and 23
percent in the construction industry. Yet, as shown in figure 1, based
on data reported by BLS, a portion of these declines occurred before
1997, the first year of the strategic plan‘s implementation. While the
agency may well have contributed to improvements before 1997, those
downward trends in illness and injury cannot be characterized as an
indication of the plan‘s effectiveness. Further, even using the 1993-95
point of comparison, two of the five industries highlighted in OSHA‘s
strategic plan did not have changes that were statistically
significant, according to an OSHA official.[Footnote 18] Comparing
changes between 1996 (the year before the strategic plan went into
effect) and 2000, we estimated that three of the five industries
highlighted in OSHA‘s strategic plan did not have changes that were
statistically significant.[Footnote 19]
Figure 1: Injury and Illness Rates for 3-by-5 Industries, 1993-2000:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Additionally, OSHA itself has acknowledged that it misstated its
progress in achieving its goals for two of the three hazards
highlighted in its strategic plan, those pertaining to reducing
exposure to silica and lead. Initially, OSHA took reductions in silica
and lead exposure at worksites it inspected and generalized them to the
nation as a whole. In its fiscal year 2001 annual report, however, OSHA
acknowledged that this was inappropriate and that the data and process
did not satisfactorily measure progress on this goal. OSHA added that
its methodology did not measure the average exposure severity for lead
and silica in all workplaces; instead it measured the average exposure
severity at workplaces that OSHA inspected, which have been specially
targeted as potentially hazardous.
OSHA Did Not Consider Many Relevant Factors When Assessing Its Impact:
When assessing its impact, OSHA did not consider many of the factors
outside its control that may have influenced changes in the level or
type of injuries, illnesses, or fatalities. There is general agreement
among those we interviewed within and outside of OSHA that other
factors, such as workers‘ compensation programs, have an effect on
workplace safety and health. However, in presenting its evaluation of
progress toward strategic goals, OSHA did not account for the potential
effects of these other influences in its annual reports. Also, in some
cases, OSHA did not account for hazards causing injuries, illnesses, or
fatalities not under its full control. For example, while OSHA reported
that it exceeded its goals for reducing fatalities in the construction
industry, it did not report that some portion of this reduction might
have occurred because of declines in transportation-related accidents
under the authority of the Department of Transportation. For example,
in 2001, about half of the fatalities in the construction industry that
resulted from transportation accidents were likely under the authority
of the Department of Transportation.
OSHA‘s Efforts to Enhance Inspector Quality Have Potential to Improve
Enforcement, but Anticipated Outcomes Could Be Jeopardized:
OSHA‘s initial efforts to enhance inspector quality are encouraging,
but the anticipated outcomes could be jeopardized. First, although
OSHA‘s restructuring efforts, which included the use of
multidisciplinary inspection teams, have had some positive results, the
effort may have also led to insufficient internal controls in the
supervisory review process that could adversely affect the consistency
of enforcement. Additionally, OSHA‘s efforts to increase training
opportunities for inspection staff hold promise but face two obstacles
that, if not addressed, may undermine the long-term success of the
resources invested in training.
Restructuring Is Positive, but May Have Led to Lack of Controls in the
Supervisory Review Process:
OSHA‘s local office restructuring appears to have strengthened
inspectors‘ ability to enforce workplace safety and health standards.
First, OSHA‘s effort to develop multidisciplinary teams has resulted in
increased opportunities for cross-training among safety and health
inspectors. Indeed, two of the local office directors we interviewed
said that inspectors are better able to detect violations, even if the
violations are outside of their disciplines. Second, having a
compliance assistance specialist at each area office has provided
inspectors with a much needed in-house resource for identifying
techniques to make workplaces safer. Eleven of the 17 area office
directors we interviewed said the compliance assistance specialist
position has greatly enhanced inspector quality, helping inspectors
provide cutting-edge information to employers about how to abate
identified hazards. Third, OSHA‘s new flexible process for responding
to complaints by phone or fax rather than actual visits has made
inspectors more efficient and able to focus on priority areas. Some of
the 17 area office directors we spoke with stated that this more
flexible complaint process freed up inspectors‘ time by as much as 30
percent or more, allowing them to focus on planned inspections and
compliance assistance rather than respond to complaints.
However, the move to multidisciplinary teams may have undermined the
internal control process for supervisory review of inspectors‘ case
files. Some area office directors we interviewed said that some team
leaders (who generally have backgrounds in safety) do not have the
expertise needed to review the health inspectors‘ case files that
accompany and support proposed violations. About half of the 26
regional administrators and area directors we interviewed expressed
concern about this issue. These officials explained that when team
leaders are unable to review case files, they generally ask someone
else in the local office with the appropriate expertise to review them,
thus resulting in additional review time and a greater potential for
mistakes because of the additional individuals involved in the process.
Area office officials we interviewed have attempted to address this
problem with varying degrees of success. Some have sought to resolve
this issue working within the multidisciplinary team structure. For
example, those offices that were large enough to establish multiple
teams for carrying out planned activities selected team leaders from
both the safety and health disciplines. They can support each other and
provide technical guidance to inspectors regarding both safety and
health issues. Other area offices did not follow headquarters
directives and chose not to restructure into multidisciplinary teams.
Instead, they maintained separate teams of safety inspectors and health
inspectors. These area office directors told us that they essentially
attain the goals of a multidisciplinary team approach by creating
temporary multidisciplinary teams whenever the need arises. They stated
that, in this way, their offices obtain the benefits of
multidisciplinary teams while minimizing the problems other offices
have had with team leaders lacking necessary expertise. Two area office
directors we spoke with expressed a desire to go back to separate teams
of safety inspectors and health inspectors but believed they needed
permission from OSHA headquarters to do so. OSHA has yet to address
these concerns at the national level.
Training Plans Hold Promise, but Lack of an Appropriate Training
Directive and Data System Pose Obstacles:
OSHA‘s plans to upgrade inspector training have the potential to
improve the professionalism and capabilities of the inspection staff.
OSHA officials we interviewed stated that they are upgrading the
curriculum of the OSHA Training Institute (OTI), which will provide
inspectors with training opportunities that give them a broader
understanding of the issues surrounding worker safety and health and
will improve their skills to conduct inspections. Furthermore, the
officials added that OSHA‘s individual development plan process should
help ensure that all inspectors and their managers identify the kind of
training they need to maintain skills and expand expertise. A majority
of area office officials we interviewed were encouraged by OSHA‘s plan
to offer inspectors opportunities to become professionally certified.
Eight of the 17 area directors we interviewed stated that inspectors
with professional certifications would appear more credible to
employers and be better able to assist these employers to correct
hazards. Over three-quarters of area office directors we spoke with
said they saw value in promoting professional certifications among the
inspector staff. Professional association officials we spoke with
supported continuing education and/or certification training for OSHA
inspectors, which they believed would enhance inspector quality.
However, OSHA‘s training plans face obstacles that may jeopardize
long-term success. First, OSHA‘s official training directive fails to
reflect OSHA‘s new commitment to training. It states, ’at a minimum,
each [OSHA inspector] is required to attend a safety and health related
course once every 3 years.“ This directive is inconsistent with current
training practices and the planned training for professional
certification. Two of the area office directors we spoke with said that
they could not rely on the directive as leverage to encourage those
inspectors that may be unwilling to take needed training to improve
their skills. Moreover, without having a formal directive that reflects
what OSHA is trying to accomplish, area office directors expressed
concern that current management focus and initiatives with regard to
training could be lost in the event of a budget cut. This is especially
important given that OSHA does not plan on finalizing its assessment of
the level and type of resources that will be necessary to carry out
this training until February 2003.
The second obstacle that may affect OSHA‘s long-term success is the
lack of a comprehensive database that tracks training or skills
obtained by inspectors. With regard to training, OSHA‘s local offices
currently access or maintain 18 incompatible national, regional, and
local (including formal and informal) databases for inspector training
information. For example, 7 of the 9 regional offices we contacted each
maintain their own training database and 2 regional offices use a human
capital database operated by the Department of Labor.[Footnote 20] Of
the
17 area offices we interviewed, 8 of them use the relevant regional
database, while 4 area offices developed their own database system and
5 used paper files. (See table 3 in app. I.) In addition, the OTI
operates a separate database that tracks only the training that it
provides. None of these databases track OSHA inspectors‘ work-related
skills. Area office directors we interviewed stated that OSHA often
hires inspectors due to expertise in a particular area (e.g. crane
safety)
that they obtained prior to joining OSHA. This expertise is not
reflected
in any of these databases. As a result, OSHA managers would be unable
to
easily identify an inspector hired from the construction industry who
has experience with crane safety developed from another job.
Because OSHA managers do not have reliable information on training and
skills, they cannot readily identify inspectors with expertise in key
hazards. In addition, OSHA managers seeking to determine whether the
agency can meet certain future contingencies have no formal mechanism
for identifying the skills of inspectors but must rely instead on
personal knowledge or informal paper records held by individuals within
the organization. Furthermore, we have reported that, without reliable
data to assess the level and type of training and skills available, an
agency cannot assess the extent to which training contributed to agency
performance.[Footnote 21]
Conclusions:
OSHA has taken important steps toward targeting its enforcement
resources on high-hazard worksites, measuring its impact, and enhancing
the professionalism and quality of its personnel. However, OSHA‘s
enforcement efforts could be strengthened by better information and
procedures that would make targeting efforts more efficient,
measurement more precise, and training efforts more effective.
OSHA may not be getting the most out of its targeting programs because
of data problems that limit OSHA‘s ability to inspect high hazard
worksites. For example, the current process for targeting construction
worksites may not allow OSHA to systematically identify potentially
more hazardous construction worksites. OSHA‘s long-term research may
ultimately address this problem. However, in the meantime, there is
little assurance that area offices are inspecting smaller worksites.
Data problems also limit the effectiveness of OSHA‘s site-specific
targeting program. Without improving the suitability of these data,
OSHA will continue to expend significant resources on this program with
little certainty that it is identifying the most hazardous worksites
and making the best use of its inspection resources. Moreover, OSHA did
not set up the site-specific targeting database in a manner that would
allow it to evaluate the program‘s impact on reducing injury and
illness rates. As a result, it lacks sufficient information to
determine whether program outcomes justify the resources expended.
The data and methodologies OSHA has used to measure its progress toward
achieving strategic goals do not offer sufficient assurance that its
efforts to measure its accomplishments produce a true picture of the
agency‘s impact on workplace safety and health or that they offer an
appropriate assessment of agency progress in meeting its own goals.
OSHA, as the federal agency responsible for overall workplace safety
and health, understandably has an interest in tracking national trends
in workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. However, these data
and methodologies may not reflect what is happening in those states or
for those hazards that OSHA is responsible for under its strategic
plan. As a result, OSHA lacks valuable management oversight information
concerning the impact of those inspection activities for which it is
most directly accountable.
Finally, OSHA has taken significant actions and plans to improve the
quality of its inspection staff. However, unless area offices can share
best practices regarding supervisory review, OSHA may not be able to
ensure that the move to multidisciplinary teams does not adversely
affect internal controls. Moreover, unless its training directive is
updated to reflect OSHA‘s current training strategy, the agency cannot
ensure that its current strategy becomes institutionalized and
implemented. And, OSHA currently lacks reliable information on the
training and skills of its inspection workforce. This information is
fundamental to improving the quality of OSHA‘s workforce.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To better ensure that OSHA gets the greatest benefit out of its
targeting programs, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor direct
OSHA to:
* encourage area offices to supplement inspections of large
construction worksites with locally planned efforts to inspect smaller
worksites,
* strengthen the validity of the data used to identify worksites in the
site-specific targeting program by addressing the data weaknesses
identified in this report, and:
* assess the site-specific targeting program‘s impact on workplace
injuries and illnesses in light of the resources expended.
To enhance OSHA‘s ability to more precisely measure its impact from the
strategic planning process, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor
encourage OSHA and BLS to work together to obtain the necessary data to
understand those injuries, illnesses, and fatalities occurring in areas
covered by the strategic plan or under OSHA‘s authority. This could
include exploring additional ways of analyzing existing BLS data or
exploring the costs of collecting additional information that would
allow state-level estimates.
To help ensure that OSHA‘s efforts to improve inspector quality achieve
their potential outcomes, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor
direct OSHA to:
* review area office efforts to develop alternative supervisory review
procedures in order to identify promising practices and disseminate
results to other offices,
* update OSHA‘s training directive to reflect its current training
strategy, and:
* work with Labor‘s Office of the Assistant Secretary for
Administration and Management to develop an information system to track
and assess training and skills obtained by the inspection staff. This
could include developing a new system or adapting existing systems.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of this report to Labor for comment. Overall, OSHA
said that our report provides useful recommendations to consider as it
moves forward in its efforts to improve the working conditions
throughout the nation. The agency also pointed out a 30-year decline in
occupational-related fatalities that took place despite huge increases
in the U.S. workforce. Further, OSHA highlighted its belief that its
enforcement system has achieved striking results, noting recent
declines in injury and illness rates.
Although OSHA generally agreed to take action on the report‘s
recommendations, it expressed a number of concerns about material
presented in the report. More specifically, OSHA raised questions about
certain aspects of our analysis of the construction worksite targeting
program. For example, it noted that we had recommended the use of local
emphasis programs to help target small construction sites while
acknowledging an absence of definitive data showing that smaller
worksites are more hazardous than larger sites. We made this
recommendation because (1) knowledgeable experts--including some at
OSHA--told us that smaller sites were more hazardous and (2) the
current construction targeting system does not adequately encompass
these sites. We continue to believe that supplementing inspections of
larger worksites with inspections of smaller ones is a prudent approach
to take until OSHA completes its study of factors to help identify
better ways to identify the most hazardous construction worksites.
OSHA also expressed several concerns about our analysis of the SST
program. For example, it pointed out that, in apparent contrast to our
findings, the agency‘s quality control reviews indicated a high level
of accuracy regarding the employer-submitted injury and illness data
the program uses for targeting inspections. In our view, there is not
necessarily an inconsistency between the quality review findings and
ours. For example, the data may have been accurate at the time an
employer submitted it to OSHA but out of date by the time it was used
for targeting purposes. Additionally, OSHA noted that interventions,
other than from the SST program (e.g., consultation visits), could have
caused an employer to correct unsafe conditions and help explain the
lack of citations during the SST visits. We agree. However, the fact
remains that there are insufficient data to determine the validity of
this explanation versus other possible explanations. In the meantime,
the SST program--a targeting program intended to identify high-hazard
worksites--continues to direct inspection resources to large numbers of
sites that have no serious violations.
Finally, OSHA made several comments on our examination of the agency‘s
ability to demonstrate impact on workplace safety and health. For
example, it reaffirmed its use of 1993 through 1995 data as a
reasonable baseline from which to measure its strategic plan‘s
accomplishments, noting, among other things, that a baseline is by
definition arbitrary. We continue to believe that, by selecting the
baseline it did, OSHA took credit for declines that occurred before
1997, the year when the strategic plan was implemented.
Labor‘s comments in their entirety as well as our responses to their
comments are shown in appendix II. Additionally, both OSHA and BLS
offered technical comments, which we incorporated throughout the
report.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Labor and the
Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health. We will also
make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report
will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://
www.gao.gov. If you have any questions about this report, please call
me on (202) 512-7215. Major contributors are listed in appendix III.
Sincerely yours,
Robert E. Robertson
Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security
Signed by Robert E. Robertson
[End of section]
Appendix I: Training Databases Used by OSHA‘s Regional and Area
Offices:
Table 3: Training Databases Used by OSHA Regional and Area Offices:
[See PDF for image]
Source: OSHA.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration:
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
end of this appendix.
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U.S. Department of Labor:
Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington,
D.C.
20210:
Mr. Robert E. Robertson:
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues:
United States General Accounting Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 5930,
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Robertson:
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your report entitled
’Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA Can Strengthen Enforcement Through
Improved Program Management.“:
The report provides useful recommendations for the Agency to consider
as OSHA moves forward in our efforts to improve the working conditions
throughout the Nation. We wish to emphasize, however, that OSHA‘s
primary goal is to reduce workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses
- not merely to inspect worksites. The report should also acknowledge
the demographics of the American workplace and how OSHA has chosen to
target its enforcement actions, as well as the results those targeting
efforts have produced. OSHA‘s responsibilities extend to over 6 million
establishments, including 700,000 construction worksites, employing
more than 120 million people. To cover this workforce, federal OSHA has
fewer than 1,200 inspectors, supplemented by inspectors from the 23
states that operate their own OSHA programs.
Despite the huge increases in the U.S. workforce over the past 30
years, the number of occupational-related fatalities continues to
decline. Last year (excluding those fatalities attributed to the events
of September 11, 2001), fewer than 6,000 workers were killed on the job
and over 40% of those were related to traffic accidents, events over
which OSHA has limited responsibility. OSHA‘s enforcement system-which
relies on a combination of site-specific targeting of establishments,
National and Local Emphasis Programs, and local area office
construction prioritization-has achieved striking results.
Specifically, from 1992 to 2000, the nations total injury/ illness rate
has decreased by 31.5%, from 8.9 to 6.1 cases per 100 workers. However,
in the cover letter to Congress, GAO aggregates all the fatalities over
the last 21 years to state that there were over 100,000 worker deaths
since 1980, overlooking the dramatic decreases that have occurred in
both fatality and injury/illness rates.
Even with the dramatic reduction, we acknowledge that the targeting
system can be improved. Therefore, in Fiscal Year 2003, the Agency
plans to evaluate the Site Specific Targeting Program and its Special
Emphasis Programs.
However, there are some statements in GAO‘s report that OSHA believes
need to be corrected. For example, GAO claims the Agency does not
effectively identify worksites for inspections, asserting OSHA‘s
databases do not permit accurate identification of smaller worksites
for inspection. GAO‘s recommendations for improving the national
Construction Targeting System are based on the presumption that smaller
construction sites are more hazardous than larger sites. Yet, GAO
acknowledges that there is no conclusive data to demonstrate this and
supports the concept of the Construction Project Survey that will allow
OSHA to rate hazards by project size. GAO further states that prior to
obtaining the results of the survey, OSHA should rely on Local Emphasis
Programs (LEPs) and ’informal criteria“ used by area offices to
identify and target smaller construction projects.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data pertaining to construction
employer size show that medium-size employers experience the highest
rates of injuries and illnesses, not the smallest employers (a lost
workday case incidence rate of 4.8 for 50-249 employees versus 2.8 for
1-10 employees). The BLS quartile data also show that more than 75% of
the smallest construction employers experience no injuries or illness
during a given year.
Also, in its analysis of the site-specific targeting (SST) program, GAO
analyzed IMIS data and equated the number of serious violations cited
to the relative hazardousness of the establishment. GAO‘s analysis did
not control for OSHA interventions other than the SST inspection that
may have contributed to the removal of hazards. Worksites with high
injury/ illness rates may experience multiple interventions from OSHA
(receipt of high injury/ illness letters, consultation visits, other
inspections, including complaint or fatality). We believe these other
interventions would cause an employer to correct unsafe conditions and
help explain the lack of OSHA citations during SST visits.
GAO also claims OSHA acts on faulty and inaccurate employer injury and
illness information. However, OSHA performs ongoing evaluations of the
quality of employer injury and illness records in its Audit and
Verification Program of Occupational Injury and Illness Records. This
program has been in place for five years and will continue. The audit
program is designed to estimate the percent of establishments that
maintain accurate records (at-or-above the 95 percent confidence
threshold). In all five years of the program, the audit findings have
shown that approximately 90 percent of employers accurately record
injuries and illnesses for both total recordable and lost workday
injury and illness cases. Based on the audit findings, OSHA has
concluded and reported to OMB that the accuracy of employer injury and
illness recordkeeping represents reasonable quality for OSHA‘s
targeting and performance measurement purposes. In fact, GAO, in an
earlier report entitled, ’Program Evaluation: Studies Helped Agencies
Measure or Explain Program Performance,“ cited the recordkeeping audit
program as an example of an excellent quality control program.
Furthermore, GAO misunderstood the constraints placed on OSHA‘s
targeted inspection system by law. According to the Supreme Court
decision, Marshall v. Barlow, Inc., 436 US 307 (1978), OSHA must have
either a reasonable belief that cause for inspection exists (e.g., a
fatality, a complaint, a referral) or an unbiased administrative plan
for selecting construction work sites for inspection. The key element
of an acceptable plan under law is a neutral and objective selection
system, not a capricious and arbitrary procedure. In the late 1980‘s,
the Agency, after considerable research and study, decided to implement
a system of random, neutral, computergenerated selections from among
the universe of active construction sites contained in the F.W. Dodge
Reports (the most complete listing of active construction work sites
known to the Agency) to be performed by an objective third party.
The draft report also inadequately distinguishes general industry from
construction, obscuring differences in how work is done in these two
major industry subdivisions and detracting from the report‘s usefulness
as a guide for future efforts to improve inspection targeting.
Methodology and data sources OSHA uses for targeting inspections of
fixed workplaces, where working conditions change relatively little
from year to year, are far less useful in construction.
The majority of construction projects are completed in less than a
year. And, also, there are no requirements for a project log. Moreover,
the employment relationship is more fluid in construction, where
workforce turnover, the roster of active subcontractors on a particular
project, and changes in the corporate identity of employers make it
much more difficult to identify unsafe construction establishments in
advance.
We recognize, as does GAO, that the Dodge System may not be the most
effective way to identify dangerous worksites. The Agency has
investigated alternatives to the Dodge Report. We are considering
possible alternative schemes for construction that seek to identify
problem worksites based on characteristics such as the size and cost of
particular projects, the construction methods and materials used, the
locality of the project, and other such variables. OSHA‘s Construction
Project Survey is intended as a first step in developing such an
alternative.
GAO also reports that OSHA misstates its accomplishments by using the
wrong baseline for measurements. Yet, in this case, it is impossible
for OSHA to avoid setting an arbitrary baseline. Given that the
baseline is by definition arbitrary, and keeping in mind that 1995
injury/illness data are not available until December 1996 (i.e., Fiscal
Year 1997), it was reasonable to choose a time period immediately
before implementation of the strategic plan. Moreover, the three-year-
average baseline was chosen for the valid statistical purpose of
avoiding
year-to-year fluctuations.
Injury/ illness rates did not decline consistently in the chosen
industries between 19931995 and actually increased or stayed the same
in 1997 compared to 1996, for all industries except shipyards. Finally,
GAO seems to conclude that the decline between 1993-1995 would have
continued even without OSHA‘s strategic plan efforts. This assumes that
the future will be like the past, which is a common assumption, but one
which is often incorrect. It is impossible to say what would have
happened without OSHA‘s strategic plan efforts.
GAO also states in its report that OSHA takes credit for reductions in
injury and illness rates without acknowledging that its efforts were
just one of many factors that affect workplace safety. This statement
is inaccurate. OSHA‘s annual reports have never claimed that OSHA‘s
efforts alone caused the reductions. Instead, OSHA has also given
credit to employers and workers for the decline.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Response to Recommendations:
1.Encourage all area offices to supplement inspections of large
construction with locally planned efforts to inspect smaller worksites.
OSHA agrees with this recommendation. The mechanism and procedures
already exist and occur for area offices to supplement the programmed
inspection targeting lists provided by the National Office with
worksites identified through an approved local emphasis program (LEPs).
LEPs must be implemented in a manner consistent with the neutral
administrative selection of worksites required by the Supreme Court‘s
Barlow decision. A new Construction Targeting Task force, initiated
last spring, will give guidance to area offices on how to better use
the Dodge Report and to ensure that LEPs are consistent with the Barlow
decision. In the new strategic plan (2003-2008), OSHA plans to include
approaches that emphasize local efforts to inspect smaller worksites.
The plan is expected to be published in March 2003.
2.Strengthen the validity of the data used to identify worksites in the
site-specific targeting program by addressing the data weaknesses
identified in this report.
OSHA systematically addresses the validity of the data collected for
targeting purposes. The collection process has quality controls. Audits
are conducted to ascertain the accuracy of employer recordkeeping.
However, OSHA plans to evaluate the effectiveness of the SST in FY
2003. As part of that evaluation, OSHA will examine data validity
issues raised in the GAO report.
3.Assess the site-specific targeting program‘s impact on workplace
injuries and illnesses in light of the resources expended.
OSHA recognizes the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of its
enforcement programs and plans to evaluate and consider changes to the
SST program in Fiscal Year 2003.
4.To enhance OSHA‘s ability to more precisely measure its impact from
the strategic planning process, we recommend that the Secretary of
Labor encourage OSHA and BLS to work together to obtain the necessary
data to better understand those injuries, illnesses, and fatalities
occurring in areas covered by the strategic plan or under OSHA‘s
authority. This could include exploring additional ways of analyzing
existing BLS data to derive estimates for federal OSHA states, or
exploring the costs for collecting additional information that would
allow state-level estimates.
OSHA has discussed these ideas with BLS. Improving the data would
require BLS to redesign the Annual Survey sample at considerable cost.
In addition, lead-time would be required to implement changes. BLS
officials have stated that the current BLS industry estimation software
for the injury and illness survey was not designed to produce estimates
for State aggregates below the National level. A major software
development effort would be required to modify the industry estimation
system to support industry estimates for State aggregates. OSHA will,
however, work with BLS to identify precise costs for producing state
estimates in order to determine the costeffectiveness of such action.
5.Update OSHA‘s training directive to reflect its current training
strategy.
OSHA plans to update its training directive to reflect its current
training strategy after the details of its new training strategy are
developed, staffed and approved. The Agency is currently analyzing its
safety specialist, health specialist and safety engineer positions to
identify specific job competencies. These will be merged with
competencies required for professional certification and clustered into
courses for new inspectors. Additionally, these new courses will be
delivered by traditional classroom training, satellite delivered
training, and by web-based training technologies. Guidance will be
established for specific areas such as workplace violence, ergonomics,
silica, lead, construction and other strategic plan and high hazard
areas that will allow inspectors to share inspection practices and
experiences across the Agency. OSHA anticipates this analysis and
revision will be completed in FY 2003, at which time the training
directive will be updated.
6.Develop an information system to track and assess training and skills
obtained by the inspection staff. This could include developing a new
system or adapting existing systems.
OSHA recommends this be written to have the Secretary of Labor direct
the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management
(OASAM) at the Department of Labor to develop an information system to
assess training and skills obtained by Departmental personnel. Other
organizations such as MSHA and OFCCP also have inspectors and would
benefit from such an information system.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your draft report. If you
have questions, please contact Frank Frodyma, Acting Director for the
Directorate of Evaluation and Analysis, on (202) 693-2400.
Sincerely,
John L. Henshaw
[Signed by John L. Henshaw]
The following are GAO‘s comments on the OSHA letter dated November 14,
2002.
GAO Comments:
1. We clarified the language in the report to better highlight recent
improvements in work-related fatality and injury rates.
2. Our draft report acknowledged there are no definitive data showing
that smaller worksites are more hazardous than larger worksites.
However, knowledgeable experts--including some at OSHA--believe that
the smaller sites are indeed more dangerous than the larger ones.
Furthermore, OSHA‘s current construction targeting efforts do not
include these smaller sites. Accordingly, we continue to believe that
supplementing inspections of larger worksites with inspections of
smaller ones is a prudent approach to take until OSHA completes its
study of factors that will help it better identify the most hazardous
construction worksites.
3. While OSHA provided data to show that medium-sized employers may be
more hazardous than smaller ones, employer size and construction
worksite size are two different measures. As a result, these statistics
may not reflect the level of hazards at small construction sites.
4. We believe that using the rate of serious violations cited is a
valid measure of a worksite‘s hazardousness, although we acknowledge it
is not the only one. This approach has been used by researchers and
OSHA itself to identify whether OSHA is focusing its inspection
resources in the right places. Additionally, we agree with OSHA that
interventions, other than from the site-specific targeting (SST)
program (e.g., consultation visits), could have caused an employer to
correct unsafe conditions and help explain the lack of citations during
the SST visits. However, the fact remains that there are insufficient
data to determine the validity of this explanation versus other
possible explanations. In the meantime, the SST program--a targeting
program intended to identify high-hazard workplaces--continues to
direct inspection resources to large numbers of sites that have no
serious violations.
5. We did not assess the results of OSHA‘s efforts to verify the
accuracy of employer-submitted injury and illness data. However, even
if the data are as accurate as OSHA suggests, our report points out
other data limitations that hinder its usefulness in targeting
inspections. For example, the data collected only reflects what
happened during a single year at a particular employer and that data
may have been an outlier that did not reflect general worksite
operations. Additionally, the data may not be current--it may be 2
years old before an SST inspection is conducted.
6. Our earlier report, U.S. General Accounting Office, Program
Evaluation: Studies Helped Agencies Measure or Explain Program
Performance, GAO/GGD-00-204 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 29, 2000) did not
independently assess the quality of OSHA‘s recordkeeping audit program.
Instead, we discussed the role of the program in helping OSHA evaluate
its performance.
7. We anticipate that, when implementing our recommendation to
encourage local offices to supplement inspections of larger
construction worksites with inspections of smaller construction
worksites, OSHA will ensure that these inspections are conducted in
accordance with all legal constraints.
8. We believe that the report adequately distinguished general industry
from construction targeting. We reported that the SST program to date
has focused on general industry worksites while the Dodge system
focuses on construction worksites. Nonetheless, we do believe they both
have data limitations that affect their ability to effectively identify
hazardous worksites.
9. We understand, based on OSHA‘s comments, that more current data
would have been available at the time when OSHA began to evaluate
progress toward the plan‘s strategic goals. We continue to believe that
OSHA‘s selection of a 1993-95 baseline allowed it to take credit for
declines that occurred prior to the implementation of the strategic
plan. As we note in the report, while OSHA may have had some effect on
these changes, the changes cannot be seen as an indication of the
plan‘s success.
10. Our report did not conclude that declines between 1993 and 1995
would have continued without OSHA‘s efforts. We agree that it would be
difficult to determine what would have happened in the absence of
OSHA‘s strategic plan efforts.
11. We changed the language in our report to clarify that OSHA, in
presenting its evaluation of its progress toward strategic goals, did
not account for the influence of other factors that affect workplace
safety and health.
12. We altered the language of the recommendation to include Labor‘s
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management. We
believe that both OSHA and the Assistant Secretary‘s office have a role
in developing the kind of data system necessary to accurately track and
assess inspectors‘ training and skills.
[End of section]
Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Lori Rectanus (202) 512-9847
Joseph Natalicchio (202) 512-5897:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Dennis Gehley, Kris Trueblood, H. Brandon Haller, and Catherine Hurley
made significant contributions to this report. In addition, Richard
Burkard and Julian Klazkin provided legal support, while Patrick
DiBattista, Barbara W. Alsip, and Susan Bernstein provided writing
assistance.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Both ’federal OSHA states“ and ’state plan states“ include
jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. For
this review, we included Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York as
federal OSHA states. Although these states have been delegated
authority for public sector workers, OSHA maintains responsibility for
private sector workers in these states.
[2] Throughout this report, we use nonfatal injury and illness ’rates,“
which represent the number of work-related nonfatal injuries and
illnesses per 100 workers.
[3] OSHA has not yet developed an overall human capital strategic plan
that these efforts would fit into. OSHA‘s overall human capital
planning efforts were outside the scope of our review.
[4] We did not contact OSHA‘s regional office in San Francisco because
it has only state-plan states within its jurisdiction. State-plan
states are not governed by OSHA‘s human capital policies and
procedures. We selected the 17 area offices to reflect a mix of
characteristics, including size of office, the level of employment
within the geographic area covered by the office, the average length of
service time for the staff in each office, and whether the office
obtained a best practices designation from OSHA.
[5] 29 U.S.C. 651(b).
[6] These include safety inspectors, who seek to prevent workplace-
related accidents resulting from unsafe machinery or procedures; and
health inspectors, who seek to prevent illnesses resulting from toxic
exposures.
[7] 29 U.S.C. 667. Delegations of authority occur only after a state or
territory submits a plan that is determined to be consistent with the
requirements of this section.
[8] See our January 31, 2000, report, U.S. General Accounting Office,
Occupational Safety and Health: Federal Agencies Identified as
Promoting Workplace Safety and Health, GAO/HEHS-00-45R (Washington,
D.C.: Jan. 31, 2000), which states that OSHA works with 14 other
federal agencies that have limited jurisdiction over workplace safety
and health.
[9] These efforts were primarily driven by the enactment of the
Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). OSHA reported
its goals for 1997-2002 separately but reported on their attainment as
part of the overall efforts of the Department of Labor.
[10] OSHA‘s strategic plan includes a variety of goals, many of which
specify the activities that the agency will pursue.
[11] For purposes of this report, the term ’safety inspector“ refers to
both OSHA safety inspectors and safety engineers. Safety engineers have
more education than safety inspectors.
[12] As shown previously in table 2, through OSHA‘s ODI process, OSHA
obtains information on approximately 140,000 worksites in relatively
hazardous industries, obtains injury and illness data from about 80,000
of them, and narrows down that list to the 3,000 it believes are the
most hazardous.
[13] OSHA generally does not contact employers to give them advance
notice of the specific date when an inspection will occur. Because
inspectors do not contact employers, inspectors may not have the
opportunity to know in advance that the visit may not be worthwhile.
Also, according to OSHA management officials, in order to ensure that
every worksite identified through this program is inspected, OSHA
headquarters sends the names of all identified worksites to area
offices even if the injury and illness rate appears to be incorrect.
OSHA withholds information on such worksites only if the rate is out of
meaningful range.
[14] Through this program, OSHA provides assistance to small employers
in hazardous industries who voluntarily request a consultation. See our
October 12, 2001, report, U.S. General Accounting Office, Workplace
Safety and Health: OSHA Should Strengthen the Management of Its
Consultation Program, GAO-02-60 (Washington, D.C., Oct. 12, 2001). OSHA
procedures do not permit state agencies operating consultation programs
to share information on participating employers with OSHA inspectors.
[15] This situation was most prevalent in the nursing home industry
because of OSHA‘s difficulties in promulgating an ergonomics standard
to address a series of musculoskeletal hazards. OSHA targeted nursing
homes, whose workers frequently experience ergonomic-related injuries,
with the expectation that it would have a standard for use by
inspectors in citing these hazards. Before the inspections could be
conducted, however, OSHA‘s ergonomics standard was legislatively
overturned. Inspectors visiting nursing homes had no standard for
citing ergonomics hazards and were discouraged by OSHA from using
OSHA‘s general duty clause to cite violations. Under the Occupational
Safety and Health Act‘s general duty clause, OSHA has cited employers
for recognized hazards for which the agency has no specific standard.
See 29 U.S.C. 645. According to OSHA officials, the agency plans to
remove nursing homes from future targeting efforts.
[16] OSHA‘s IMIS system permits individual inspections to be coded as
representing more than one OSHA initiative (i.e., SST, construction,
LEP, and NEP). In deriving this statistic, we identified all
inspections coded as LEP, even if they were also coded for other
initiatives.
[17] In comments on this report, OSHA noted that there are numerous
interventions that may contribute to the removal of hazards, such as
inspections in response to a worker complaint.
[18] Injury and illness data are collected through a survey. As a
result, there are sampling errors associated with estimates of injury
and illness rates. In some cases, differences in injury and illness
rates are not large enough to determine whether or not changes in
injury and illness rates were real or due to sampling errors. In such
cases, changes are not statistically significant. OSHA performed
statistical significance evaluations of its trend data in response to a
draft of this report.
[19] Both GAO and OSHA analyses calculated statistical significance at
a 95 percent confidence level.
[20] The Department of Labor‘s ’People Power“ database, which is
maintained by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration
and Management, contains a broad range of information, including
training, on its employees and serves as a system of record for all
personnel actions. Of the 26 regional and area offices we interviewed,
only 2 regional offices used the People Power system. Regional and area
office staff generally do not have the special training needed to fully
use this system.
[21] See our March 15, 2002, exposure draft, U.S. General Accounting
Office, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO-02-373SP
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2002).
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