Democrats raise alarm as states accused of warning employers of 'surprise inspections' | Business

U.S. lawmakers have written to the U.S. Department of Labor asking about reports that some state safety agencies are warning employers against conducting workplace inspections.

The letter, from senior Democratic members of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Congressman Robert “Bobby” Scott and Congresswoman Dr. Alma Adams, cites testimony from farmworkers and activists in California and a New York Times article on child labor in which an employer in South Carolina admitted that it had instructed workers to clean up and prepare for an inspection after receiving a notice from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of an impending inspection.

“Cristina Gonzalez, a Madera farmworker who picks figs, testified that last August a foreman ordered workers to spend the first two hours of the next workday picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms before an inspection,” the letter on the California account said.

Regarding the South Carolina case, it continued: “If the employer in this news report is to be believed, this story raises more than just questions about South Carolina's compliance with workplace safety laws. [Occupational Safety and Health] Acts to enforce state plans, but also the ability to use federal funds to help employers evade detection of child trafficking and repressive child labor law violations.”

In 2023, a lawsuit filed by South Carolina was dismissed after the state attempted to block OSHA from increasing the federal maximum penalties for workplace safety violations. The Union of Southern Service Workers also filed a petition with the federal agency OSHA in December 2023 demanding that South Carolina be stripped of the authority to run its own state OSHA program due to a lack of inspections and enforcement.

The statement said that “unannounced inspections” of workplaces by state occupational safety and health officials are an important tool for enforcing federal occupational safety and health regulations and that the award of federal funds to state agencies is conditioned on the fact that inspections cannot be announced in advance.

“This tool is so valuable to OSHA enforcement that anyone who improperly gives advance notice of an inspection can be subject to fines and imprisonment,” the letter said.

An official in Scott's office noted that Osha has long struggled to ensure the adequacy and quality of the work of state law enforcement agencies, and that the agency's resources appear limited. Democrats have introduced legislation to reform and modernize Osha in recent years.

In their letter, lawmakers seek answers from the U.S. Department of Labor regarding the allegations, how the department would respond to and resolve the allegations, and what challenges the Department of Labor faces in enforcing the state's compliance with OSHA regulations.