OSHA wants you to go to work for it in 2013

Well, president Obama release the FY 2013 budget yesterday and with regards to OSHA, the main points had to do with an increased funding for the whistle-blowers’ program and a decrease in money for personnel through the consolidation of three different regional offices which would effectively eliminate some redundant positions.

1. The Whistle-blowers’ program: OSHA would receive an additional $5 million to help fund all the investigations that are currently backlogged. What this is essentially telling us is that OSHA realizes that it can’t possibly do it’s job adequately without workers being its eyes and ears on the street, or more accurately, in the workplace. I’ve mentioned it before, it would currently take OSHA more than 84 years to investigate every business in the US. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen. The Whistle-blowers’ program essentially empowers workers by letting them know that their own safety is ultimately in their own hands and that OSHA will take the time to investigate reports of safety violations in the workplace.

2. Consolidation: Under the proposed plans, OSHA wants to streamline it’s operations by consolidating the Boston and New York offices, the Kansas City and Denver offices and the San Francisco and Seattle offices. OSHA estimates that this will save about $1.3 million and eliminate three full-time positions. This is purely the administrative side of things and would not reduce the number of OSHA reps out in the field.

There is, of course, a whole lot more to the proposed budget. If you are so inclined and want to wade through over 90 pages of fiscal information, you can read the Department of Labor (which includes the OSHA budget) online at http://www.dol.gov/dol/budget/