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Tip of the week: Understand OSHA citations

Contemporary Long-Term Care Weekly, April 8, 2010

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations can be very stiff, and the monetary impact of these penalties is used to prevent and deter further noncompliance for worker safety. The penalties are listed by the nature of their severity. Furthermore, OSHA cites on an incident basis, which means that each area of noncompliance is provided with a particular level of citation. The citation types include:

• The egregious penalty, as the term implies, is a very severe violation that often entails significant monetary penalties. They are given as a result of large numbers of injuries or deaths due to unsafe work sites, persistently high rates of violations and worker injuries, the employer’s behavior toward safety and the health of its workers viewed as being in bad faith, and employers who have often engaged in intentional disregard for their employees’ safety.
• The willful violation is levied on an employer for each incident the employer participated in – with a knowing and intentional manner – that could have or already has compromised the safety of workers. Employers can face criminal convictions in areas that have led to severe harm or death of employee(s).
• When there is a strong likelihood for death or serious injury and the employer should have known or failed to take any action to prevent such an injury, the employer can be cited at the serious violation level.
• The other-than-serious violation is cited when there is a potential for worker injury or health issues, but the injuries that would occur in such an instance would not be severe.
• A repeat violation is cited when the same violation, or a similar one, is found to exist from a previous OSHA survey. It can be cited on a daily basis without providing the 30-day period for abatement. Also, a failure to correct prior violation citation is imposed when the employer does not abate the citation within the 30-day period.
• The de minimus violation is used to cite very minor technicalities; it often does not result in any sanction or monetary penalty.

This is an excerpt from the HCPro book, The Long-Term Care Administrator’s Field Guide, by Brian Garavaglia, PhD.

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