American companies have benefited from artificially low fines over the past 25 years, during which time OSHA has not raised its fines according to inflation. On the other hand, all of the increases will not have to come at once, making up a total 82% increase in assigned fines. This means that the fines can now reach a maximum of about $127,000 each; a steep change from the $70,000 maximum fine that businesses enjoyed under stagnant regulations.
Those fines won’t cover everything OSHA plans to roll out in 2016 by themselves, however. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requested a seven percent budget increase for fiscal year 2016, and with that extra money will come some overall changes to the way the organization interacts with businesses.
Most importantly, the budget increases OSHA will experience in 2016 will allow them to change the structure of investigations. Instead of conducting investigations on a regular schedule and completing them in a perfunctory, checklist-oriented way, OSHA is likely to throw away their current quotas and ask for longer, more in-depth investigations. These would be more infrequent but would require more input from investigators and companies both, as the new reporting will involve checking a widened scope of safety factors and taking a much closer look at company operations.
If your company is up to regulatory standards, this shouldn’t be a problem beyond the additional time commitment and paperwork. Staying abreast of chemical compliance standards will help you survive an OSHA investigation, and the best way to do this is through safety software. One of the most helpful parts of a good safety software is trend analysis, which helps you look at which hazards and accidents have been occurring commonly and therefore allows better regulation against further infractions. If accidents don’t happen, OSHA has very little reason to launch an in-depth investigation like the new ones that will begin this year.
