The Government Accountability Office is gearing up to probe whether employer incentive programs discourage workers from reporting and affect the accuracy of injury and illness data, following up on a report it conducted last fall and in response to a request from lawmakers.
OSHA confirmed last week that it is temporarily suspending its National Emphasis Program (NEP) targeting recordkeeping, which also examines employer incentive programs (see related story).
A source at GAO told Inside OSHA that staff is now starting work on the request from House and Senate lawmakers, but it will be some time before it has results. Furthermore, the source noted that GAO will continue to track OSHA's response to its first report, as it is the time of year where GAO updates the status of recommendations. He added that OSHA's decision to temporarily suspend its recordkeeping NEP could be examined by GAO as part of OSHA's response to GAO's suggestions.
Both the House and Senate labor committee and workplace safety subcommittee chairs requested that GAO look into the issue of incentive programs in a letter last October. "We request that GAO examine a representative sample of employer safety incentive programs to identify whether they contain features which could deter or encourage injury and illness reporting, evaluate OSHA's legal options and efforts to address workplace reporting disincentives, and, if gaps exist, identify policy options for Congress and the Executive Branch to appropriately address reporting disincentives," the letter states.
The lawmakers add that congressional hearings and preliminary work done by GAO show that disincentives can discourage workers from reporting injuries and illnesses and employers from recording them.
GAO is also following OSHA's response to the report it issued last November, which found that OSHA's recordkeeping audits may be inadequate. OSHA has started to act in response to some of the recommendations, said Sara Pelton and Mary Crenshaw of GAO, during a presentation at the recent annual American Society of Safety Engineers conference.
In response to GAO's recommendation to require inspectors to interview workers during records audits, OSHA has indicated that it will revise procedures to require interviews during the audit process when the audits resume in 2011 and will ensure that inspectors are trained on conducting interviews with employees, Crenshaw said. The records audit process was suspended for 2010, as part of OSHA's NEP targeting recordkeeping.
OSHA also plans to develop a web site that will be available to the public, which will include guidance and compliance assistance materials to increase education and training to help employers determine which injuries and illnesses should be recorded under OSHA standards, Pelton said.
Additionally, OSHA plans to review its audit program to identify opportunities to reduce the amount of time between when an employer records injuries and when it is audited by OSHA, in response to another GAO suggestion. The agency plans to shorten lag time by collecting certain data in February and the rest of the information in May. GAO believes that the change could decrease lag time by about 10 months, Crenshaw said.
GAO also recommended that OSHA update its list of high hazard industries, as it found that deficiencies with the information inhibited OSHA's ability to verify data accuracy, Pelton said. As a result, OSHA will conduct an expedited and streamlined rulemaking to update the high hazard industries list. -- Sara Ditta