FACTS

1. General Types of hazards inspections encounter

• chemical exposure
• fire and explosion
• lack of oxygen
• ionizing radiation
• biological hazards
• safety hazards
• electrical hazards
• heat stress
• cold exposure
• noise.

2. Specific hazards inspectors encounter

• aggressive people
• snakes
• guard dogs
• electric fences
• water hazards
• uneven ground
• soft, or unstable ground
• obstacles to entry or exit points
• site structures in poor condition
• unstable stacked material
• dust or spray in the air
• unusual odors
• pools of liquid on the ground
• steam outlets from machinery
• leaking, damaged or bulging drums
• sharp objects

STATS

• During the first three years under Trump, OSHA conducted about 81,000 safety inspections — a 4.7 % decrease from about 85,000 conducted during the last three years of Obama’s presidency.
• The number of inspections began to rise in fiscal year 2019 and was on pace to rise even higher in 2020 until the pandemic hit.
• OSHA has conducted more than 6,800 investigations into workplaces that had a fatal or catastrophic incident. The vast majority of them — about 91 % — had not been inspected in the previous 10 years, according to a Public Integrity analysis of the agency’s enforcement data.
• Researchers at Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley found that companies subject to the agency’s random inspections showed a 9.4 % decrease in injury rates compared with uninspected ones. They also found no evidence of any added cost to inspected companies from complying with regulations.
• Researchers with the RAND Corporation analyzed workers’ compensation data in Pennsylvania and found that OSHA inspections were linked to a sharp decline in reported injuries at medium-size companies. Inspections that led to citations with penalties played a role in reducing injuries by an average of 19 percent to 24 percent each year for the two years following each inspection.