The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has revised its penalty guidelines for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to better support small businesses and encourage quicker resolution of workplace hazards. These changes aim to make it easier for small employers to comply with safety regulations and focus their resources on creating a safer work environment.
Key Changes to OSHA Penalty Guidelines
The updated policy, effective immediately, introduces several key adjustments to how penalties are assessed:
- Increased Penalty Reductions for Small Businesses: The eligibility for a 70% penalty reduction, previously limited to businesses with 10 or fewer employees, now extends to companies with up to 25 employees. This change is designed to reduce the financial burden on small employers, allowing them to invest more in safety compliance and hazard abatement.
- Credit for Prompt Hazard Correction: Employers who immediately take action to fix or address a hazard are now eligible for an additional 15% reduction in their penalty.
- Expanded Reduction for Employers with Good Compliance Records: The policy expands penalty reductions for employers with no history of serious, willful, repeat, or failure-to-abate OSHA violations.
- Employers who have never been inspected by federal OSHA or an OSHA State Plan are eligible for a 20% penalty reduction.
- Employers inspected within the last five years who had no serious, willful, or failure-to-abate violations are also eligible for this 20% reduction.
Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling emphasized that these adjustments ensure small businesses are not penalized as severely as larger companies with more resources, supporting entrepreneurs while still holding them accountable for worker safety.
These new guidelines apply to open investigations where penalties haven’t been issued yet. However, penalties issued before July 14, 2025, will remain under the old structure. OSHA reserves the right to withhold penalty reductions if they don’t align with the goals of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
Learn more at the OSHA site.