OSHA Citations & Penalties - Essay Example

The OSH Act citations and penalties The OSH Act citations and penalties Citations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) refer to descriptions of the violated occupational safety and health regulations and standards while penalties are the proposed fines in strength to those violations. This Act is enforced by the USA department of labor, whose main aim is to reduce workplace related hazards (Goetsh, 2012). The office inspects firms operating in the USA and based on its findings, it can issue the employer or employees in subject with any of the four citations situated in the Act.

The citations include Other Than Serious Violation, Willful Violation, Repeated Violation, and Failure to Correct Previous Violation.Other Than Serious Violation is issued in occurrence of a directly related violation to work safety and health that cannot lead to death or severe injuries to an employee. In the case of Willful violation, it is issued to employers found having intentionally defiled the Act or knowingly assumed an existing hazardous conditions and no whatsoever efforts of abating them (Goetsh, 2012).

A Repeat violation citation, on the other hand, is issued if after re-inspecting a firm the violations found were observed during the previous inspection and a citation issued. Lastly, Failure to Correct Previous Violation is a defiance that may lead to civil penalties with increment upon delays past the abatement date. In each case, penalties are proposed and in some cases subject to reduction depending on the level of compliance demonstrated by the employer (Goetsh, 2012). However, this is not case with the Repeat Violation citation and Failure to Correct Previous Violation, unless the original citation is under contest.

ReferencesGoetsh L. David. (2012). OSHA compliance chapter six. In Construction safety and health. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.