In his March 16, 2010, testimony before the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, and the Committee on Education and Labor, David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, explained that the median initial penalty for all investigations in cases where a worker was killed was just $5,900 (2007).
The Dept. of Agriculture can levy $130,000 on milk processors who willfully violate the Fluid Milk Promotion Act The FCC can fine a TV or radio station as much as $325,000 for indecent broadcasts. The EPA can hit companies with $270,000 for violations of the Clean Air Act, and penalize them $1 million “for attempting to tamper with the public water system.” Per the terms of the Montreal Convention of 1999 (formally known as the “Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air”) the family of a person killed in an airline crash gets about $175,000, with no quibbles.
Yet “the maximum civil penalty OSHA may impose when a hard-working man or woman is killed on the job—even when the death is caused by willful violation of an OSHA requirement—is $70,000.” (SOYMB emphasis)
Since passage of OSHA in 1970, “fewer than 100 cases have been prosecuted [criminally] while more than 300,000 workers have died from on-the-job injuries.
The Dept. of Agriculture can levy $130,000 on milk processors who willfully violate the Fluid Milk Promotion Act The FCC can fine a TV or radio station as much as $325,000 for indecent broadcasts. The EPA can hit companies with $270,000 for violations of the Clean Air Act, and penalize them $1 million “for attempting to tamper with the public water system.” Per the terms of the Montreal Convention of 1999 (formally known as the “Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air”) the family of a person killed in an airline crash gets about $175,000, with no quibbles.
Yet “the maximum civil penalty OSHA may impose when a hard-working man or woman is killed on the job—even when the death is caused by willful violation of an OSHA requirement—is $70,000.” (SOYMB emphasis)
Since passage of OSHA in 1970, “fewer than 100 cases have been prosecuted [criminally] while more than 300,000 workers have died from on-the-job injuries.
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