OSHA Weaknesses Force Workers to Choose: Report Safety Violations, or Keep Their Jobs?

[Omaha Steve]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15809/osha_weaknesses_force_workers_to_choose_report_safety_violations_or_keep_th/

By Mike Elk

Weaknesses in OSHA's whistleblower protection laws leave employees vulnerable to retaliation for speaking out against workplace hazards. (Greg Younger / Flickr / Creative Commons)

According to a report released last week by the Center for Effective Government (CEG), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspects only 1 percent of workplaces in the United States in a given year. In the absence of inspections, that means more of the burden to report safety abuses falls on individual workers themselves. However, the CEG study shows that due to weak protection laws, many workers find themselves choosing between reporting a safety violation and keeping their jobs—creating a vicious cycle that can lead to workers too fearful to report potentially deadly workplace hazards.

"Too often, when workers raise concerns about health and safety hazards on the job, employers retaliate with reduced hours or dismissal, even though doing so is clearly illegal," says Katie Weatherford, regulatory policy analyst at CEG and the author of the report. "Neither federal OSHA, nor its state-level counterparts, currently do enough to protect workers from being harassed, suspended, or fired for reporting health and safety problems, leaving workers with no place to turn."

A big part of the problem is the law, say advocates. “The protections allotted to workers under 11(c) of the OSH Act [of 1970] are grossly inadequate and not conducive to building a safe workplace,” says Public Citizen's Workplace Safety and Health Advocate Keith Wrightson. "As it stands today, 11(c) is in dire need of modernizing and its directive should provide workers with the strongest language possible."

Workplace safety and health advocates cite several problems with the current regulations. First, the statute of limitation on when workers can file a complaint for retaliation is too short, they say. Because workers only have 30 days to file a claim under 11(c), the section of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act that concerns retaliatory measures, workers unfamiliar with the law or uncertain of how to proceed may miss the window.

FULL story at link.