The first part of this article discussed the grim statistics for worker illnesses, injuries, and deaths in American workplaces. The sobering facts of 11,000 injuries and 16 deaths per day prompted OSHA to review the current regulations and particularly their enforcement policies. The new OSHA administration issued a tough new directive to deal with repeat offenders and initiated the serious violator enforcement program (SVEP). We presented the details of this new enforcement action and argued protecting workers and doing things right, i.e. operating in compliance with current worker health and safety laws is better business than avoidance and hoping not to get caught. This second, and final, installment picks up that theme and presents the rest of the story in favor of protecting workers.

A Bigger Hammer - Environmental Protection Agency
We mentioned in the beginning of the first part of this article that other agencies besides OSHA may regulate your activities. As it turns out, a definite connection exists. Facilities that tend to ignore worker safety violations also tend to ignore environmental laws.^1,2 In many instances responsibilities for worker safety and environmental compliance are in the same hands within a company. Most of the environmental laws carry felony sanctions for criminal violations that can result in serious jail time and much heavier fines and penalties.

Mr. Uhlmann, the current director of Environmental Law and Policy Program at the University of Michigan School of Law and former Chief of the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section, provides one stark example of an Idaho business with cyanide waste tanks. Workers were sent into the tank to clean it. The hazardous wastes were dumped on the ground and one worker collapsed in the tank and suffered severe and permanent brain damage but lived. Under OSHA no crime was committed (though many OSHA violations were) because the worker lived; therefore no OSHA criminal sanctions were levied. Under EPA, however, improper disposal of hazardous wastes resulted in a 17 year jail sentence.

The moral here: if your worker safety record is not so hot, you better take a close look at your compliance with EPA’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act for starters. It might seem unfair that environmental sanctions are much more severe than those for worker safety, but regulators will use the tools available to them when justified and needed.

Let us inject one more warning here. In our experience, forensic activities and facilities are not exempt to run afoul of environmental regulations as evidenced by numerous and substantial EPA fines levied against both private and academic laboratory facilities. Since the connection flows both ways, if you have been stung by environmental compliance issues you could be selected for a visit by OSHA.

Mr. Uhlmann states, and most would agree, that a strong enforcement program is needed to bring consistent violators in line. To that end the Department of Justice, EPA, and OSHA started the Worker Endangerment Initiative, a cooperative effort to corral chronic and persistent violators of worker safety laws. By forming this partnership, OSHA and EPA inspectors are more knowledgeable regarding regulations that can form the basis of criminal charges and lead to convictions.