US Department of Labor
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Enforcement
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) mission is to promote and to assure workplace safety and health, and to reduce workplace fatalities, injuries and illnesses. With over four decades of working to ensure safe and healthy workplaces, OSHA has continually served a vital role in assuring safe and healthful working conditions for men and women. Since the passage of the OSH Act of 1970, workplace deaths have fallen nearly 65 percent and occupational injury and illness rates have dropped 67 percent. OSHA continues to respond to new challenges from emerging industries, new technologies, and an ever-changing workforce by utilizing strategic mechanisms such as Site Specific Targeting (SST), National Emphasis Programs (NEPs), the Severe Violator Enforcement Program, and Corporate Settlement Agreements.
OSHA INSPECTION ACTIVITY
In FY 2013 OSHA conducted 39,228 total inspections. This number includes 185 significant and egregious (instance-by-instance) enforcement actions. In addition, OSHA conducted 22,170 programmed inspections. These inspections indicate that OSHA devoted more resources to proactively target the industries and employers that experienced the greatest number of workplace injuries and illnesses. OSHA also conducted 17,058 unprogrammed inspections, including employee complaints, injuries/fatalities, and referrals. Fatality inspections decreased by 8.2 percent in FY 2013.
|
OSHA Inspection Statistics |
FY 2009 |
FY 2010 |
FY 2011 |
FY 2012 |
FY 2013 |
| Total Inspections |
39,004 |
40,993 |
40,614 |
40,961 |
39,228 |
| Total Programmed Inspections |
24,323 |
24,773 |
23,329 |
23,078 |
22,170 |
| Total Unprogrammed Inspections |
14,681 |
16,220 |
17,285 |
17,883 |
17,058 |
| Fatality Investigations |
836 |
830 |
851 |
900 |
826 |
| Complaints |
6,661 |
8,027 |
8,765 |
9,573 |
9,505 |
| Referrals |
4,375 |
4,634 |
4,776 |
4,864 |
4,024 |
| Other Unprogrammed Insps* |
2,809 |
2,729 |
2,893 |
2,546 |
2,703 |
|
* Other Unprogrammed Inspections include: Fatality/Catastrophe, Monitoring, Follow-Up, Unprogrammed Related, and Unprogrammed Other Inspections. Note: FY 2011 includes OSHA Information System (OIS) data and OSHA's Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) data that is of limited comparability to previous years that only include IMIS data. |
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|
OSHA Violation Statistics |
FY 2009 |
FY 2010 |
FY 2011 |
FY 2012 |
FY 2013 |
| Total Violations |
87,663 |
96,742 |
85,514 |
78,723 |
78,196 |
| Total Serious Violations |
67,668 |
74,885 |
62,115 |
57,112 |
58,316 |
| Total Willful Violations |
401 |
1,5191 |
594 |
423 |
319 |
| Total Repeat Violations |
2,762 |
2,758 |
3,229 |
3,034 |
3,139 |
| Total Other-than-Serious |
16,615 |
17,244 |
19,306 |
18,054 |
16,290 |
Referrals or Significant Aid to Prosecutors Addressing OSHA-Related Matters
|
|
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
|
Criminal Referrals |
14 |
10 |
13 |
3 |
OSHA continues to make referrals or provide significant aid to prosecutors addressing OSHA-related matters. These actions include referrals under Title 29 of the United States Code, Section 666(e), for employee deaths caused by willful conduct violating an OSHA standard, obstruction of justice, aiding state and local investigations, and prosecutions on safety and health related matters. Fraud related matters, such as training card fraud, are also included. A criminal referral is made by the DOL Office of the Solicitor to the Department of Justice.
For more information on OSHA inspections, see the OSHA Inspection Fact Sheet https://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/factsheet-inspections.pdf, or click this link for more information on OSHA's compliance assistance services https://www.osha.gov/dcsp/compliance_assistance/index.html, and OSHA's free on site assistance for small employers https://www.osha.gov/dcsp/smallbusiness/consult.html. For information on employee rights, see the OSHA Workers Page https://www.osha.gov/workers.html
1 It should be noted that the significant increase in willful violations in FY 2010 is due to a number of significant enforcement actions in the refinery industry, including an action against British Petroleum North America, which has been subsequently settled.