The House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on whether our nation’s health and safety laws ensure that employers who fail to protect their workers are adequately penalized and deterred from committing future violations.

Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970 with the goal of assuring safe and healthful working conditions to all American workers. Nearly 40 years later, while workplace health and safety has improved, many workers remain at risk of death, injury or illness while on the job.

The Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on Immigration and Custom Enforcement workplace raids and the effects of the raids on local communities, including the impact on children, most of whom are American citizens. Witnesses explored how immigration enforcement could be improved in order to protect children.

The Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s lack of adequate enforcement and oversight of workplace safety and health conditions within large, multiple-facility corporations.

Witnesses explored events at the Cintas Corporation, the largest uniform supplier in North America. In 2007, a worker died at the company’s Tulsa facility despite previous evidence, known to both OSHA and Cintas, of similar hazards at other Cintas facilities and industrial laundries. The death resulted in the largest service sector fine in OSHA’s history and was followed by additional citations of similar problems at other Cintas facilities.