Occupational Safety and Health: OSHA Policy Changes Needed to Confirm thatEmployers Abate Serious Hazards

摘要

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspects workplaces todetermine whether employers (1) meet their responsibilities for providing workplaces that are free recognized hazards and (2) comply with occupational safety and health standards. OSHA issues citations for violations found during inspections and specifies time limits within which hazardous conditions must be corrected or standards must be complied with. We reviewed OSHA's policies for confirming abatement and discussed them with OSHA headquarters and field staff. To obtain a better understanding of how OSHA carries out theses policies, we reviewed (1) inspection case files in two are offices within Labor's Region V; (2) OSHA's fiscal year 1988 and 1989 internal field audit reports; (3) fiscal year 1989 inspection statistics and data from OSHA's computerized Integrated Management Information System; and (4) past studies by GAO, the Labor's IG, and a Labor enforcement task force.