As the Occupational Safety and Health Administration plans to release citations stemming from COVID-19-related inspections, it has changed its policy so inspectors’ citations for employers no longer will immediately be available to the public on request, according to Bloomberg Law.
OSHA now requires a request be submitted under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal law that covers release of public documents; Such requests often take months before they are fulfilled and can lead to litigation before documents are produced. Previously, OSHA had included links to citations in press releases or provided them upon simple request.
Workplace-safety citations provide detailed explanations of alleged hazards inspectors documented during inspections, as well as information about what inspectors believed happened if an accident occurred. OSHA has six months to issue a citation against a company.
OSHA continues to post inspection summaries on its website, which include regulations inspectors determined were violated and proposed fines for each violation but are not as detailed as citation reports.
