The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has revised its guidance about the penalty structure found in the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act Section 7. The OSH Act was legislated in 1970 to make sure employees in the United States have safe and healthful working conditions. Besides establishing workplace safety and health criteria, it founded the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). OSHA is designated to enforce compliance with the OSH Act and can penalize violators (even HIPAA-covered entities).
The penalties issued by OSHA are meant to discourage future violations and ensure that companies create a safe and healthful work space. To lessen the burden on small enterprises and to encourage the resolution of workplace problems, OSHA has in the past implemented a 70% less penalties for companies with 10 or fewer workers.
The updated policy, described in the Penalties and Debt Collection part of OSHA’s Field Operations Manual, extends the penalty cutbacks for small companies to include those with up to 25 workers. The goal is to make it less difficult for small companies to buy resources for risk reduction and ensure future compliance. The updated policy features a penalty reduced by 15% for companies that quickly handle or correct a risk, and extends the penalty decrease for companies with no record of serious, deliberate, recurring, or failure-to-ease off OSH Act violations. Companies will be entitled to a 20% less penalty if they were never inspected by an OSHA State Plan or federal OSHA, or if they were inspected in the past 5 years and found no serious, deliberate, or failure-to-ease off violations.
The revised policy was enforced immediately on July 14, 2025, and includes inspections begun before that date that did not result in a penalty. The past penalty structure is applicable to penalties enforced before that date. OSHA has the right not to reduce penalties when they don’t support the objectives of the OSH Act.
As per Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling, all companies must be given the chance to follow regulations that help provide a safe working space. Small companies that are working honestly to follow complicated federal regulations should never face similar penalties as big companies with plentiful resources. Lower penalties on small companies help support the business owners that fuel the economy and give them the resources they need to make a safe and healthy place for workers while making them responsible.
