OSHA Raises Fines for Safety Violations for First Time Since 1990

For the first time since 1990, penalties for violations of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) work safety rules have gone up.

OSHA was authorized to raise civil penalties for work safety violations late last year when Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. Section 701 of that Act, titled Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act, authorizes OSHA and some other agencies to raise the fines to account for inflation.

The New OSHA Penalty Amounts

For both serious and other-than-serious violations, defined at 29 CFR 1903.16(d)(3) and (d)(4) respectively, the maximum penalty will rise from $7,000 to $12,471. This new maximum penalty figure also applies to failure to post required State and Federal labor information and failure to abate (i.e., correct) violations uncovered during an OSHA safety inspection.

For willful or repeated violations (29 CFR 1903.16(d)(1) and (d)(2)], the maximum penalty will rise from $70,000 to $124,709. The minimum penalty, meanwhile, rises from $5,000 to $8,908.
The new penalty amounts take effect August 1, 2016 and can be applied to any violation that occurred after November 2, 2015. 
The full list of adjusted penalty amounts for OSHA and other Department of Labor agencies is available here. Note: For the OSHA penalties listed in this chart, Lion Technology believes the references to 1903.15 should read “1903.16.”

Convenient, Effective OSHA Training at Lion.com

Protect your team with effective safety training at Lion.com. From GHS HazCom training to the interactive 10-hour OSHA General Industry course, OSHA training at Lion.com will help your employees identify hazards in your workplace, avoid and mitigate those hazards, and protect their coworkers. With fines set to increase by nearly 80% on August 1, allowing untrained employees to work at your site is now a bigger liability than ever.  Learn more at Lion.com/OSHA-Training

Tags: and, fines, new rules, osha, penalties