OSHA said it will target approximately 4,150 high-hazard worksites for unannounced comprehensive inspections during the coming year as part of its Site-Specific Targeting program for 2007.
The program, now in its ninth year, focuses the agency’s enforcement efforts on workplaces with the highest numbers of injuries and illnesses based on the agency’s 2006 survey of injury and illness data from approximately 80,000 employers.
According to OSHA administrator Edwin G. Foulke Jr., the agency also will randomly select and inspect approximately 100 workplaces with 100 or more employees that reported low injury and illness rates, to review the worksites’ actual degree of compliance.
The updated plan makes some technical changes from the 2006 program, including criteria for how OSHA develops its inspection lists. It also includes changes in the way the agency handles worksites that do not respond to the survey OSHA uses to generate inspection targets, as well as how OSHA area directors must maintain inspection lists/cycles.
