GAO Report On Workplace Injury Reporting Stuns OSHA

The Occupational Safety and Healthy Administration (OSHA) has again been forced to confront the fact that injury and illness reporting are just not at the level they need to be in order to ensure the highest level of worker protections across all industries.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is a specific branch of the government dedicated to auditing data for various federal agencies, has just provided a report which confirmed the fact that it is all too common for companies to under-report the incidence of injury in the workplace.

The report, which focused on OSHA records dating between 2005 and 2007, unearthed studies which claimed that the agency may only be aware of 30 percent of the actual number of on the job injuries and illnesses that occur on a yearly basis.  OSHA had previously noted a downward trend in reported incidents over the past 17 years, but it turns out that instead of this encouraging data resulting from actual improvements in safety, it has instead been subject to manipulation on the part of employers, who in all cases are relied upon to self-report any accidents resulting in worker injury or harm.

GAO went even further in their report, stating that employers often went to extremes in order to reduce their level of reporting to OSHA.  Some would pressure employees to downplay their injuries by penalizing those workers who did complain of safety issues or incidents on the job or by taking away incentives and promotions.  Doctors were also interviewed who stated that they were often asked to reduce their evaluation of a workplace injury’s severity by managers in order to improve their standing with OSHA.  Many managers claimed that their actions were largely the result of a desire to avoid citations from OSHA, or to reduce the costs associated with workplace injuries.

For their part, OSHA has pledged to take a hard look at the recommendations made by GAO with regards to how they gather workplace injury information.  GAO indicated that relying on companies to accurately self-report injuries is perhaps no longer a comprehensive enough strategy to help OSHA with their tweaking and structuring of employee safety regulations, protocols and guidelines.  The idea that government programs which reward workplaces that report fewer incidents than others could in fact be damaging to the health of employees rather than beneficial was also voiced in the document.

A change from self-reporting to a more inspection-oriented mandate would dramatically alter the role of OSHA and would also have an impact on the documentation and liability of risk managers charged with protecting their workers from harm.  It is unlikely that self-reporting will ever be completely eliminated, due to the budgetary restraints associated with continual comprehensive inspections, but the process may become far more stringent in terms of providing corroborating data to match injury reports – or the lack thereof.