OSHA gets tough again as court halts cooperative program

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration Monday resumed traditional workplace safety inspections after a federal court blocked the agency's new Cooperative Compliance Program.

OSHA Administrator Charles Jeffress said the return to hard-nosed inspections would keep OSHA enforcers working while the U.S. Court of Appeals considers a lawsuit aimed at striking down the Cooperative Compliance Program (CCP). Under the CCP, companies with high workplace injury rates would agree to voluntarily find and fix safety problems, involve employees in a safety and health program, and provide injury data to OSHA. In return, OSHA would reduce the companies' chances for a potentially costly OSHA inspection from 100 percent to 30 percent. About 10,000 companies had agreed to the program before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Washington-based business lobbying group, convinced the court to block the CCP and review the chamber's concerns that the CCP is an overbearing regulation masked as a voluntary program.

"We have no choice but to resume traditional enforcement because we are unable to proceed at this time with a program that most employers wanted, that protected workers, and that enabled us to put our limited resources where they could do the most good," Jeffress said in a statement.

OSHA's resumed inspections will target 3,300 employers with injury rates above the national average for their industries. Jeffress said most companies want to cooperate with the agency. OSHA released to the press five comments from private sector managers who favored the CCP.

"I write to express my sincerest regrets that this effort on the part of your agency is being thwarted in the interests of 'Big Business' over the safety and well-being of the American worker," William J. Balak, Jr., a risk manager for Schwartz Bros. Insurance in Chicago wrote to OSHA. "I was truly impressed by what I saw as an emerging 'user-friendly' agency which had 're-engineered' to help businesses."

Joe Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, questioned OSHA's contention that most businesses welcomed the CCP.

"We have gotten more calls from small and medium businesses agreeing that the CCP is coercive than for any issue in the past," Davis said. Companies felt they had no choice but to "volunteer" for the program, the chamber argues.

The court halted the CCP in February while it reviews the program, then ruled on April 6 that OSHA could resume traditional inspections. Opening briefs for the case will be filed in the coming two months.

Federal regulatory agencies are increasingly looking for ways to improve their relationships with the businesses they regulate. As OSHA has developed the CCP, the Environmental Protection Agency has established a number of programs that emphasize voluntary compliance over contentious inspections. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has replaced some restrictive regulations with negotiations and incentives for conservation.