Greater Oversight of State Worker Health and Safety Programs Needed, Witnesses tell House Labor Panel
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Stronger federal oversight of state-run health and safety programs is needed to ensure that states provide workers with basic on-the-job protections, witnesses told the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee. Serious questions were raised after a federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration review of Nevada OSHA found significant gaps in the agency’s protections.“Basic oversight of state plans is not only important in Nevada, but it is vital to the 57 million American workers whose health and safety protections are enforced by a state plan,” said Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the committee. “While some states are running innovative programs, it is clear that additional reviews of state plans are warranted.”
Under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, a state can operate their own workplace health and safety program as long as they meet basic federal minimum standards. Twenty-seven states and territories operate such programs and are partially funded by the federal government.
“Workers need to know that OSHA will enforce the laws that will keep them safe on the job,” said Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV). “Unfortunately the federal report clearly illustrates that Nevada OSHA let our workers down. I thank Chairman Miller for shining a light on this dismal record of workplace safety so that we can bring about meaningful reforms that will protect workers, remove undue political influence from the process, and restore confidence in Nevada OSHA.”
A federal review of Nevada’s OSHA program found that the state failed to cite employers for clear hazards, didn't properly train inspectors on construction hazards, didn't follow up to ensure that dangerous conditions were fixed, failed to include worker representatives in inspections, and even failed to notify families of deceased workers of investigations or give them the chance to speak to investigators. Last year only 29 percent of Nevada’s citations were classified as “serious” compared to 44 percent for other state plans and 77 percent for federal OSHA.
The review of Nevada OSHA was prompted after a 12 construction deaths on the Las Vegas Strip over an 18-month period during the city’s latest construction boom and a Pulitzer Prize-winning series by the Las Vegas Sun.
“State plan standards and enforcement must be at least as effective as Federal OSHA in providing safe and healthful employment to workers in the state,” said Jordan Barab, Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. “Federal OSHA identified a number of serious concerns about the Nevada plan.”
Barab also said the agency plans to increase oversight of all state programs after the federal OSHA review of the Nevada program.
For example, federal OSHA found that Nevada OSHA weakened penalties against a major hotel firm after two workers died and one was seriously injured at the Orleans Hotel and Casino, even though there was a history of similar problems. The investigator of the tragedy filed a complaint with federal OSHA regarding the lesser penalties and alleged that the lowered penalties were the result of OSHA protecting the contractor from bad publicity and a wrongful death lawsuit by the workers’ families. He later resigned.
“The federal OSHA review of the Nevada state plan agency confirms that NV OSHA utterly failed not only my son…but also all workers in the state of Nevada,” said Debi Koehler-Fergen, the mother of Travis Koehler who died in the Orleans tragedy. “[NV OSHA] is allowing powerful companies to use their political connections to influence such things as the outcome of investigations.”
Nevada OSHA also testified and pledged to improve their program.
Barab also announced that federal OSHA will undertake additional reviews of state-based health and safety programs similar to the one they agency completed on Nevada. Franklin Mirer, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the City University of New York testified that additional reviews are warranted because states that operate their own health and safety plan often have lower rates of citations than federal OSHA.
“The OSHA report, and the press reports, depict failures of the enforcement process in the Nevada state plan,” said Mirer. “Compared to OSHA, state plans in general issue fewer citations classified as higher gravity, including serious, willful, failure to abate and repeated. Federal OSHA can take this opportunity to improve its oversight of state plans.”
The Education and Labor Committee first examined construction safety problems in a 2008 hearing, including a string of deaths during the recent building boom on the Las Vegas strip. The hearing found that even when Nevada issued fines to employers for operating an unsafe workplace, those sanctions were often later reduced or even eliminated.
Miller said that he is planning additional oversight activities into this issue.
For more information on the 2008 hearing, click here.
To read the OSHA review of the Nevada health and safety program, click here.
Next Article