Safety Tidbit 4.22 - Penalties Get a Raise

Safety Tidbit 4.22 – Penalties Get a Raise

Reference: https://www.osha.gov/penalties/

In the midst of the longest Federal government shutdown OSHA’s penalties get a cost of living increase. There’s something to be said for automating regulatory processes. Patrick Kapust, the new acting Director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, sent the OSHA Regional Directors a memo Wednesday outlining the new penalty values effective immediately.

The cost-of-living adjustment multiplier for 2019, based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for the month of October 2018, not seasonally adjusted, is 1.02522. To compute the 2019 annual adjustment, the Department multiplied the most recent penalty amount for each applicable penalty by the multiplier, 1.02522, and rounded to the nearest dollar.

The adjustment factor of 1.02552 will remain consistent across the minimum and maximum penalties set forth in the OSH Act and FOM. For example, OSHA's current maximum penalty for a Serious violation is $12,934.00; following the application of the adjustment factor ($12,934.00 x 1.02522), the new maximum penalty for a Serious violation will be $13,260.00.

On November 2, 2015, Congress enacted the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, Public Law 114-74, sec. 701 (Inflation Adjustment Act), which further amended the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 as previously amended by the 1996 Debt Collection Improvement Act (collectively, the "Prior Inflation Adjustment Act"), to improve the effectiveness of civil monetary penalties and to maintain their deterrent effect. The Inflation Adjustment Act required agencies to: (1) Adjust the level of civil monetary penalties with an initial "catch-up" adjustment through an interim final rule (IFR); and (2) make subsequent annual adjustments for inflation, no later than January 15 of each year.

Bottomline, if you wish to work without the guard on the machine or are missing a guardrail it may cost you a lot more than their replacement costs.  Be diligent and tour your workspaces to ensure your controls, practices, or personal equipment are installed, followed, or used appropriately.

Hope this was helpful and thank you for reading my Safety Tidbits! Comments and questions are always welcome. ~ Bryan

P.S. If you have a new safety or health question, please let me know.