There has been a debate raging for years within labor and workplace safety about why penalties aren't more severe for employers who kill workings after willfully (knowingly) violating an OSHA standard. The maximum penalty for willingly killing a worker is six months in jail, and it's only a misdemeanor, making prosecutors reluctant to go through all the work to try a case. In fact, the penalty for har\rassing a burro on federal lands is greater than the penalty for willfully killing a worker. Democrats have proposed increasing the penalties, but Republicans refuse to even bring the issue to a vote.
Well, looky here. There seems to be good news for all of you fans of criminal prosecution.
The Bush administration seems finally to be catching on:
One thing we have learned ....is that simply fining employers ... doesn't work. [The federal government] invested substantial time and effort in issuing proposed administrative fines against unscrupulous employers, only to see the fines ignored, paid in an untimely manner or reduced to nothing. For many employers, these fines amounted to a cost of doing business. They were no deterrent.
We can achieve far greater respect for the law among employers by bringing criminal prosecutions and seizing assets derived from illegal employment schemes. The prospect of 10 years in federal prison and losing that new home and car to forfeiture has much sharper teeth than a small fine. This is the future of work-site enforcement.
Oops, unfortunately, this statement is not from OSHA director Ed Foulke, but
from assistant secretary of homeland security for immigration and customs enforcement (ICE), Julie Myers. And she's talking about employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, not employers who knowingly kill their employees.
Myers' bureau is the same one that did such a great job of impersonating OSHA staff last year in an effort to nab undocumented workers in North Carolina. Maybe OSHA should now return the favor by copying some of ICE's new-found zeal for tough enforcement.
There's a lesson here. If you can raise an problem to such a frenzy that it becomes a major election issue in an election year, politicians will respond.
Jordan Barab blogs at Confined Space