OSHA does not kill jobs; It helps prevent jobs from killing workers

Abstract

I have been promoting the message in the title of this article since I became head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2009. Although workplace injury and fatality rates have decreased dramatically since OSHA was created, there remain voices doubting the effectiveness of OSHA’s inspections. Now, there is a substantial body of empirical evidence showing that enforcement has a strong, positive impact for both workers and employers. Two studies published in this issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and a paper published recently in the journal Science have convincingly demonstrated that OSHA inspections result in reduced injury risk. Moreover, employers who are inspected by OSHA generally see cost savings exceeding any penalties levied by inspectors. The result is that all the parties involved benefit from OSHA inspections: workers are less likely to be injured and employers’ workers’ compensation and other indirect costs are reduced. Examining the impact of federal OSHA inspections on workers’ compensation claims among employees of Pennsylvania manufacturing firms, Haviland et al. [2012] report that where OSHA levies a penalty, injury claims fall by 19–24 percent per year during the next two years. Inspections without penalties showed little effect. This paper, ‘‘A new estimate of the impact of OSHA inspections on manufacturing injury rates, 1998–2005’’ continues a series of important studies on OSHA effectiveness by John Mendeloff, Wayne Gray and other researchers with the Rand Corporation and the University of Pittsburgh. Similar results were found by Foley et al. [2012] analyzing the impact of OSHA activities on workers’ compensation injury claims in Washington State. These researchers, affiliated with the Safety and Health Assessment and Research for Prevention (SHARP) Program of the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, examined the effectiveness of inspections and free consultations among fixed site and non-fixed site (often construction) employers. In this study, the effect of enforcement was seen primarily in the prevention of injuries other than musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs). For those inspections resulting in a citation by Washington State OSHA, lost workday non-MSD claims fell 22 percent during the following year; if an employer had an inspection but no citation, the claims fell about 7 percent, compared with the baseline (no OSHA inspection) of 2 percent. Both studies are strikingly consistent with the findings of researchers at the Business Schools of the University of California Berkeley and Harvard University, who examined workers’ compensation claims following California OSHA enforcement visits. Their findings are well summarized by the paper’s title: ‘‘Randomized government safety inspections reduce worker injuries with no detectable job loss.’’ They found that workplace injury claims dropped 9.4 percent at businesses randomly chosen by researchers in the four years following an inspection by the California OSHA program, compared with employers not inspected. Furthermore, those same employers saved an average of 26 percent on workers’ compensation costs. The positive effects of random inspections were seen among both small and large employers [Levine et al., 2012]. When OSHA compliance officers identify serious hazards, the agency assesses penalties. These penalties are generally not large, averaging a few thousand dollars except in unusual circumstances. It is my experience that Occupational Safety and Health Administration, United States Department of Labor, Washington,District of Columbia The author reports no conflicts of interests. *Correspondence to: Dr. David Michaels, PhD, MPH, Assistant Secretary, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, United States Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue,NW,RoomS2315,Washington,DC 20210.E-mail:PublicMichaels.David@dol.gov