In OSHA’s 48-year-old history, the agency has experienced desperate hours on a regular schedule. The agency opened its door in 1971. Before the decade was out a “STOP OSHA” lobbying movement was underway. In 1979, Republican Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania proposed an “OSHA Improvements Act” which would have exempted from inspections all employers, large or small, regardless of industry, with good safety records. It was defeated in 1980.

An OSHA health compliance officer (an industrial hygienist -- IH) recently put me in an ethical dilemma. While conducting “side-by-side” air sampling as the employer’s representative during an OSHA inspection, I observed that the OSHA IH was not sampling for asbestos correctly.

A long compliance battle between OSHA and a nationwide terminal company has ended with the company agreeing to improve forklift safety at more than 100 of its freight terminals.

It was around 4:30 in the afternoon on March 25, 1911. Several hundred workers, mostly young women, were nearing the end of their Saturday shift at a blouse or “shirtwaist” factory in New York City. No one is quite sure how, but a massive fire erupted and spread quickly.

Maximum penalties for OSHA violations are set to increase for the first time since 1990 as part of overall federal penalty adjustments mandated by Congress last year. The increases were announced Thursday by the Department of Labor, which issued two interim rules covering penalty adjustments for several DOL agencies, including OSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration and Wage and Hour Division.

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At OSHA, we gather a lot of numbers. They tell us about the health and safety of U.S. workplaces and help us measure our progress in reducing injuries and illness. But numbers don’t always tell the whole story, and that’s definitely true in the case of inspections.

A foundry, its owner and three members of its safety consultant company have been found in criminal contempt by U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips after disobeying a court order to allow federal inspectors to investigate a report of an employee at the foundry with an elevated blood lead.

Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to be here with you today to take stock of where we've been as an agency over the past year and where we want to go together this year. I know that every one of you wants to lead a consequential life. That's why you came to work at OSHA. And you've succeeded.