The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducts inspections without advance notice to ensure compliance with federal safety and health requirements in the workplace.
Because the agency cannot inspect all the millions of workplaces it covers each year, it seeks to focus its inspection resources on the most hazardous workplaces in the following order of priority:
1. Imminent danger situations.
2. Fatalities and catastrophes.
3. Complaints.
4. Referrals of hazard information.
5. Follow-ups.
6. Planned or programmed investigations.
Other questions
Now, if OSHA inspectors show up at your door, they will probably pose some questions that don’t appear to have anything to do with safety compliance, but rather have to do with employer information.
The reason being: a new OSHA enforcement memo calls for inspectors to ask for 12 pieces of additional information as part of the government’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces program. Among other things, inspectors must find out:
- The company’s Dun & Bradstreet number.
- The parent company’s name and contact information.
- Whether an imminent danger notice was issued during the inspection.
You have been warned.
