OSHA violations: Back door to higher penalties and criminal prosecution

Employers cited for workplace safety or health violations could find themselves facing significantly higher penalties and possible felony prosecution under a new federal initiative to use alleged OSHA violations as a launching point to investigate whether companies are also violating environmental laws.

The joint initiative by the Departments of Labor and Justice is based on their stated belief that companies that ignore workplace safety or health regulations are likely to violate environmental laws as well. The government says that exposure to toxic and hazardous substances contributes to the 13 workplace-related deaths on average in the U.S. each day. (I would love to see the basis for these statistics.)

By tying in environmental investigations, the government could seek civil and criminal penalties that are far tougher for environmental violations than for workplace safety or health violations.

Individual company executives may also be at risk. “Due to a recent push by the DOJ to focus on holding individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing, company executives and decision-makers could be the target of increased scrutiny during the government’s investigation,” according to an article by the Holland & Hart law firm.

In recent years, OSHA has sought to increase criminal penalties for workplace safety and health violations and now apparently has found a back-door way to do so without having to go through Congress to get a change in the law. While the Occupational Safety and Health Act does allow for criminal prosecutions, they generally only can result in misdemeanor convictions. The new initiative would allow prosecutors to seek felony convictions, which are allowed under environmental laws. In addition, potential monetary penalties are significantly higher under environmental laws than the OSH Act.