In late April, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced efforts to address “urgent safety and health problems facing Americans in the workplace.” In response, OSHA is implementing the Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) and increasing civil penalty amounts.
SVEP will become effective in June. The new program concentrates resources on “inspecting employers who have demonstrated indifference to their Occupational Safety and Health Act obligations by willful, repeated, or failure-to-abate violations,” according to a statement from OSHA.
The penalty changes will increase the overall dollar amount of all penalties while maintaining OSHA’s policy of reducing penalties for small employers and those acting in good faith. The current maximum penalty for a serious violation, one capable of causing death or serious physical harm, is $7,000 and the maximum penalty for a willful violation is $70,000. The average penalty for a serious violation will increase from about $1,000 to an average $3,000 to $4,000.
Get the program details here.
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