The US federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has revised portions of its national enforcement policies, reducing penalties for employers that take prompt action to correct identified violations, and raising the ceiling for special small business penalty reductions from employers with 10 or fewer employees to those with 25 or fewer employees. These revisions appear in Chapter 6 (Penalties and Debt Collection) of OSHA’s Field Operations Manual (FOM). The remainder of this note discusses these revisions.
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Tags:
OSHA,
Occupational Health,
Worker Safety,
Workplace Safety Guidelines,
Safety Standards,
Occupational Safety,
Field Operations Manual,
FOM
On May 2, the Trump Administration issued its budget proposal for federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 (October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026). The administration proposes a $582,381,000 budget for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which would be a 7.9% ($49,928,000) decrease from OSHA’s adopted 2025 budget of $632.3 million (the Biden Administration had proposed $655.5 million; I wrote about it HERE). The remainder of this note summarizes the Administration proposal.
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Tags:
OSHA,
workplace safety,
Trump,
Trump Administration,
Workplace Safety Guidelines,
Regulatory Compliance,
Safety Standards,
FY 2026 Budget,
Federal Budget Proposal,
Occupational Safety
In the aftermath of January’s massive southern California wildfires, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has recompiled and highlighted its guidance for post-wildfire cleanup. Although this guidance is not unique (I’ve written about similar websites HERE), it provides a timely reminder to organizations in areas that may be subject to wildfires, and to other harmful incidents as well. The remainder of this note summarizes Cal/OSHA’s latest compilation.
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Tags:
workplace safety,
Cal/OSHA,
Fire Safety,
Wildfire Cleanup,
Occupational Health,
Hazard Assessment,
Environmental Health and Safety,
Wildfire Preparedness,
Health Hazards,
Safety Regulations,
Fire Risk Management,
Emergency Response,
Worker Safety,
Post-Wildfire Recovery,
Workplace Safety Guidelines
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) compiles data about occupational injuries and illnesses (I&I), and issues annual reports about occupational injuries, illnesses and fatalities. BLS cooperates with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements that employers record occupational I&I as they occur, and compile annual I&I logs to inform workers and regulators of overall rates. BLS issued its report for calendar year 2023 in December 2024, highlighting causes and distributions of workplace deaths, and noting that they were lower than in 2022. The rest of this note summarizes how these occupational incidents are reported and counted.
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Tags:
Health & Safety,
OSHA,
EHS,
Safety and Health at Work,
Injury,
Health and Safety Compliance,
Workplace Safety Guidelines,
Risk Management
