OSHA & MSHA Penalties Significantly Increased

摘要

On July 1, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an interim final rule raising civil penalties for occupational and mine safety and health violations, and certain other types of employment law infractions. In some cases, the increase will be as high as 80%. The stated goal for the increase in all agencies is to conform to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act as amended in 2015. In the future, the increases contained in the final rule will be adjusted for inflation annually based on the Consumer Price Index. The rule took effect Aug. 1, 2016. This article presents a brief overview of the increases. OSHA penalties had not been adjusted in many years, and this past fall's debt ceiling legislation included a provision directing OSHA to increase its fines by nearly 80%-the largest increase of all the affected DOL agencies (Table 1). Consequently, the maximum OSHA penalty, which is applicable to citations classified as "willful" or "repeat," increased on Aug. 1,2016, from the previous $70,000 ceiling to the new maximum of $124,709.