Any company or organization coming under the scanner of OSHA or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a good reason to fear as OSHA is increasing the penalties for serious safety violations.
The average penalty for a serious violation by OSHA has been around $1000 and under the new policy, the average fine for serious violations will be between $3000 to $4000.
However, the agency has indicated its likeliness to increase the penalties even further but constrained by the current legal maximums of $7,000, which is for serious violations and for willful violations $70,000. The maximum penalties would increase to $12,000 and $250,000 and adjust for future inflation if the legislation pending in Congress, which the agency favors, would go through.
OSHA’s director, David Michaels said, "Although we are making significant adjustments in our penalty policy within the tight constraints of our law, this administrative effort is no substitute for the meaningful and substantial penalty charges included in the Protecting America's Workers Act,". He further said that the penalties and OSHA inspection will be big enough to discourage employers from underfunding safety training programs to save their costs.
It is the responsibility of the employers to provide a safety training program to their employees and make their work life safer and healthy. OSHA safety training programs are provided both online and on-site depending upon the demands. The online OSHA compliance training courses are approved by OSHA and it is the most popular way of training since it saves a lot of time for the trainees.
The average penalty for a serious violation by OSHA has been around $1000 and under the new policy, the average fine for serious violations will be between $3000 to $4000.
However, the agency has indicated its likeliness to increase the penalties even further but constrained by the current legal maximums of $7,000, which is for serious violations and for willful violations $70,000. The maximum penalties would increase to $12,000 and $250,000 and adjust for future inflation if the legislation pending in Congress, which the agency favors, would go through.
OSHA’s director, David Michaels said, "Although we are making significant adjustments in our penalty policy within the tight constraints of our law, this administrative effort is no substitute for the meaningful and substantial penalty charges included in the Protecting America's Workers Act,". He further said that the penalties and OSHA inspection will be big enough to discourage employers from underfunding safety training programs to save their costs.
It is the responsibility of the employers to provide a safety training program to their employees and make their work life safer and healthy. OSHA safety training programs are provided both online and on-site depending upon the demands. The online OSHA compliance training courses are approved by OSHA and it is the most popular way of training since it saves a lot of time for the trainees.
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