The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has changed its guidance concerning the penalty framework in Section 7 of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act. The OSH Act was signed into law in 1970 to ensure United States workers have protected and healthful working environments. Aside from creating workplace safety and wellness standards, it began the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). OSHA is assigned to enforce OSH Act compliance, and could punish violators.
OSHA issues penalties to dissuade future violations and ensure that organizations develop a secure and healthy work area. To reduce the responsibility on small businesses and to encourage dealing with workplace issues, OSHA has previously enforced a 70% reduction in penalties for small organizations with less than 10 workers.
The current policy, explained in the Penalties and Debt Collection portion of OSHA’s Field Operations Manual, that the penalty cuts for small organizations will include those with around 25 workers. The objective is to make it much easier for small organizations to purchase resources needed to reduce risks and ensure future compliance. The revised policy includes a 15% less penalty for organizations that immediately manage or address a risk, and expands the penalty reduction for organizations without record of serious, intentional, repetitive, or failure-to-alleviate OSH Act violations. Organizations will be allowed to a penalty amount of interestxlu in case they were not checked out by an OSHA State Plan or federal OSHA, or in case they were reviewed in the last 5 years without finding any serious, intentional, or inability-to-ease off violations.
The updated policy was enacted right away on July 14, 2025, and contains inspections started before that time that did not cause a penalty. The last penalty framework applies to penalties put in place before that date. OSHA has the authority not to lessen penalty when they do not assist the goals of the OSH Act.
According to Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling, all organizations should be allowed to adhere to rules that help give a secure working area. Small HIPAA-covered entities that are working diligently to adhere to complex government regulations should not face fines like larger companies that have numerous resources. Lower fines on small organizations help assist the business owners that fuel the economic system and provide them with the resources they need to make a safe and healthy place for employees while making them responsible.
