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Responsibility for the nation's occupational safety and health program is divided between theFederal Government, through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and those states that have DOL-approved Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) plans. The state-run programs are administered and operated with federal approval and generally cover both private- and public-sector employers. In states that rely on the Federal Government for enforcement, state and local government employees are excluded from overage under the OSH Act where the state does not have an approved OSH plan. Consequently, some state and local government employees do not have adequate safety and health protections in the workplace.
Twenty-nine states and territories do not have the authority to operate state OSH plans. Our audit found that 17 of the 29 states lacked some important elements of an adequate public-sector safety and health program, including two states (Alabama and Delaware) that had no program. We also found that nine states do not extend workplace safety and health coverage to their approximately 2.3 million local government workers. Furthermore, there is little information compiled and readily available to evaluate injuries and illnesses in the public workplace for the Federal OSHA states.
Our audit concluded that there are significant disparities among the states in the levels of OSH protections provided to public-sector workers within the Federal SHA states. We found significant lapses in the scope, depth, and degree of coverage. Although several states we examined have established risk-control offices and various other programs to control the costs of workplace injuries and illnesses in the public sector, their efforts are only part of the solution. These programs do not provide the kind of comprehensive safeguards afforded other state and local government workers that enhance workplace safety and healthful workplace conditions.
We recommended that OSHA:
" seek amendments to the OSH Act to provide specific coverage for all public-sector workers;
" encourage those states with programs lacking the most basic protections and those states missing important program elements to seek the necessary state legislation and policies to protect the health and safety of their public workers adequately; and
" establish a clearinghouse to publicize the best practices used by other state programs.
OSHA generally agreed with our conclusions
and recommendations, and we will continue to work with
the
agency to identify solutions.
(OA Report No.
05-00-001-10-001, issued February 9, 2000)
