When Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis resigned her position, the talk became what might happen to OSHA’s planned Injury/Illness Prevention Standard (I2P2). Secretary Solis had announced this initiative in early 2010. The stated purpose was to require employers to establish a plan that would prevent violations of OSHA standards and that would protect workers from violations of their workplace rights.

One objection of mine to adding more OSHA standards is that the standards cited frequently (top ten in frequency) remain generally the same year to year. Sometimes they shift position in frequency order. Sometimes the numbers of citations trend up or down, but generally it all remains in a controlled range.

At ASSE’s Professional Development Conference for the past several years there has been a session entitled Executive Safety Summit. A panel of CEOs or senior managers and a moderator discuss their views of safety. Good stuff. Near the end of the session is the most important question: What are your recommendations for the safety professionals in attendance here today? The above title was one answer.

The people who write huge swath OSHA standards are from the same philosophy (big government solves all ) that wrote: 2700 pages of healthcare law, begatting multiple thousands of a pages of regulations; 2300 pages of financial law, with more thousands of pages of regulations, etc. etc.  Enough!!

I have comments and questions about OSHA’s March 12, 2012 memorandum with the subject line: “Employer Safety Incentives and Disincentive Policies and Practices.”