Effectiveness of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Citations

Construction safety is gaining recognition as a keystone of the construction process. The increase in both insurance costs and workers’ compensation makes it necessary to eliminate worksite accidents. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was established to provide guidelines for safe worksite practices and to ensure the safety of the workers. Often, the citations that are issued to the employers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance officers are disputed and brought before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) to decide if the citations were representative of actual violations. This process results in lengthy court cases and increased cost due to the cumulative costs of legal and other services. Two hundred fifty-five OSHA citations were decided by the OSHRC during the years 1991–1993. These 255 cases included 884 violations of OSHA Standards 29 CRF 1926. Out of these 884 violations, 56% were affirmed, 18% were modified, and 26% were vacated by the OSHRC. The most frequently contested violations belonged to Subpart D—Occupational Health and Environmental Controls (118 violations), Subpart P—Excavations (103 violations), and Subpart K—Electrical (90 violations). In the majority of cases, the arguments centered around the vagueness in the interpretation of OSHA standards. Several standards, for example, simply read that the employer must provide safety equipment. While the employer interpreted this to mean “make available,” OSHA interpreted it to mean “require use of.” Also, the large size of each of the standards makes it very difficult for middle managers who supervise safety at worksites to study and comply with each and every standard. In spite of the best worksite safety program provided by the employers, it is highly unlikely that an OSHRC compliance officer would depart any given worksite without citing a minimum of three violations. This statistic makes employers wary of the visiting OSHRC compliance officer. The research conducted at the Construction Safety and Health Institute, State University of New York at Buffalo, has analyzed three consecutive years of OSHRC decisions, with the following objectives: (1) guiding the employers in interpreting OSHA standards as OSHA and OSHRC see them; (2) providing a convincing discussion on the fact that OSHA should revisit its standards with an aim toward clarity; and (3) establishing a decision model that can be used by the contesting parties to avoid OSHA citations.