With the uncertainty around how OSHA will look under the new administration, I took the opportunity to answer a few questions about the proposal and OSHA's evolving regulatory environment.
So far in early 2025, there’s a proposal to abolish OSHA, an ongoing effort to shrink the federal government and reduce the federal labor force, and an executive order to repeal 10 existing regulations for every new regulation. What can we say about how things are likely to play out based on what we’re seeing now?
First, let’s take stock of where things are now, and what’s likely to happen, making as few assumptions as possible.
Let’s tackle the big question first, about the proposal to abolish OSHA. Arizona representative Andy Biggs (R) introduced a bill into the House early in 2025 called the “NOSHA” (for “Nullify OSHA”) Act, and it’s among the shorter pieces of legislation I’ve seen. The entire bill reads: “The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is repealed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is abolished.” It’s important to note here that the proposal is not just to abolish OSHA as an agency, but also to repeal the original Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act of 1970 that created the agency and established its authority.
That’s not to say that these agendas couldn’t wind up being split. It’s theoretically possible that lawmakers could follow a strategy of eliminating OSHA while not repealing the OSH Act. In practice, it’s extremely unlikely that they’d be able to accomplish either goal. As of the present time (February 14, 2025) the bill has no cosponsors and is in only one committee. Rep. Biggs introduced the same proposal in 2021, and at that time, it had nine cosponsors, but still never advanced to a Congressional vote, so there’s even less formally measurable momentum behind the proposal this time around. Should the proposal ever come to a vote, given the current makeup of Congress, the probability of having the votes to either eliminate OSHA or repeal the OSH Act is pretty close to zero.
But, and this is the important part, this bill is not the only way to weaken federal OSHA’s power, because we’re also in a strong climate of deregulation. We see that, for example, in President Trump’s executive order (EO) stating that “whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed,” and that for fiscal year 2025, “the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations” must be “significantly less than zero.” Any agency, including OSHA, attempting to issue a new regulation would need to find 10 other rules, regulations or guidance documents to purge, and would need to document how they complied with the EO. That’s definitely going to result in fewer regulations coming out. There’s also the fact that the current administration has paused some rules published late in President Biden’s administration pending review.
We also see this deregulatory push in proposals to eliminate other government agencies and to significantly reduce the size of the federal labor force, which is already well underway due tosome federal employess accepting buyouts and others being terminated.
Putting this all together, OSHA’s very unlikely to go away, and the OSH Act probably isn’t going anywhere, either. But it’s a given that the pace of regulatory change by OSHA and other agencies is going to slow down, and some regulations passed late in the previous administration's term may wind up being reworked. We’re also almost certainly going to see a smaller federal OSHA in terms of headcount, and that can affect its ability to conduct site visits and manage enforcement at the same level.
What role would state OSHA departments play in a deregulatory environment, especially if federal OSHA winds up with fewer enforcement officers and less regulatory activity?
The short version of the answer is that many states and territories have approved state OSHA plans, as you can see on this map. A state can create its own agency to enforce OSHA regulations, and the arrangement is that every state must issue regulations at least as protective of employee health and safety as the federal regulations.
States that have state OSHA plans will still be able to enforce their state regulations, and in fact, they’d still be able to continue having and enforcing those regulations even in the very unlikely scenario that federal OSHA and/or the OSH Act cease to exist. State-plan states would also be unaffected by reductions in the size of federal OSHA’s staff.
Still, states all depend on federal funding to various degrees, and given that there’s a general push to cut federal funding, cuts in federal allocations to states could also impact the state’s ability to run its safety agency. They could potentially address that by revising their budgets to shift money around, or by increasing state revenue to offset the loss of federal funding, which may mean increases in taxes such as sales taxes or income taxes.
Of course, states that had no state agency of their own would be in a different situation. Significant reductions in the size of federal OSHA would disproportionately affect them. And while it’s very unlikely that federal OSHA or the OSH Act will go completely away, as discussed previously, the impact on states without existing state OSHA plans and agencies would be very significant. They’d need to evaluate their need to develop regulations and enforcement agencies of their own, and determine how to fund it, and all of that would take time.
The most likely scenario is still just that federal OSHA continues to exist, the OSH Act stays the law of the land, but federal OSHA has a smaller staff. If that’s the case, federal OSHA would do more of what they’ve been trying to do more of when it comes to enforcement in recent years anyway, which is to do fewer things better. They’d focus on high priority sites and industries with the highest rates of significant injuries like fatalities, restricted duty cases, and days away from work, and on facilities with known violations, or significant reported accidents.
What role will potential civil liability play in holding companies accountable for worker safety?
There will be some role there, but we need to be clear about how this would play out, keeping in mind that this discussion is focused on the United States, although some of this would be applicable in other countries, too.
Employees in all fifty states and federal employees are covered under either state or federal workers' compensation laws, which means that if they get injured on the job, they have a way to receive compensation from their employer for medical and other costs. However, because worker’s compensation laws are the legal “remedy” for a workplace injury, an injured worker can’t usually also sue their employer.
There are still occasions when you can file a civil lawsuit against your employer, though, such as when you can demonstrate that your employer directly takes an action with the intent to harm you, your employer has insufficient worker’s compensation insurance or no worker’s compensation insurance at all, or the injury occurred due to a third party, such as a visitor to the facility. All told, there’s still some potential for a lawsuit there, especially with the latter two categories. Most of the time, your employer’s (hopefully!) not going to try to hurt you, but your employer may well lack sufficient worker’s compensation insurance, and ineffective systems for controlling who enters the facility can lead to injuries by visitors and other third parties. Many companies do lack good visibility and oversight over plant visitors.
Of course, worker’s compensation law restrictions against civil lawsuits don’t apply to non-employees such as the visitors themselves, which is another reason to have better oversight over who’s entering your facility and whether they understand safety protocols, such as where they can and can’t go and what personal protective equipment (PPE) they need.
A final point here is that there’s another court we haven’t talked about yet --- the court of public opinion. It’s a lot easier to find yourself a defendant there, and a lot harder to get an acquittal. If major accidents occur at your site and make the news, that can very quickly and very adversely impact the willingness of customers to buy your product and services, the willingness of banks to loan you money, and the willingness of investors to give needed capital to grow your business. Negative publicity can also jeopardize your relationships with value chain partners like suppliers, distributors and retailers.
So, all told, there are definitely mechanisms that can offset some of the reduced regulatory and enforcement activity we may be seeing.
What approach should multinational companies take to manage safety effectively across different regulatory requirements?
This is another very important consideration, because business in 2025 is increasingly global business. Many companies have locations in the US, as well as other locations globally, and so different sets of regulations apply. Anything that happens in the US with OSHA is not going to affect regulatory requirements outside of the US.
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s say that the most extreme and unlikely possibility comes to be, and OSHA goes away entirely. You have facilities in the US and multiple other countries, including Canada. Are you going to comply with existing safety regulations for your Canadian employees and take an “anything goes” approach for your US workers. Probably not. For one thing, you’d be treating employees differently based on geography, which is unfair. For another thing, that would be a laughably ineffective and scattershot way of managing safety.
A more pragmatic and sustainable approach would be to benchmark based on the highest level of protection provided by regulations that affect any of your employees, globally. That way, you’re providing an equally high level of protection to your entire workforce and having one standard rather than multiple standards is going to make your job managing safety a lot easier, too.
What are the risks for companies that only focus on compliance rather than integrating safety into their overall business strategy?
There are really a couple of main risks.
The first is that a compliance focus is just not as effective as a risk-based focus. Regulatory agencies create regulations to address workplace risks, but no regulatory agency is ever going to be able to exhaustively address all of the hazards and risks in your workplace. Notably, some global regulations are deliberately structured to sketch out broad obligations for employers to identify and control workplace risks without getting too much into the weeds on the details. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the UK works that way, as do the work health and safety (WHS) model regulations in Australia.
The other risk is that regulations and regulatory environments change, so they can only provide so much stability for the foundation of your safety program.
Regardless of government mandates, why should companies prioritize workplace safety as a best practice?
We got a preview of this when discussing the strategy of meeting requirements in different regulatory jurisdictions, and the risks of focusing only on compliance. The answer there was basically that you need to build your safety management system in a way where it doesn’t wind up getting buffeted by the waves of changing regulatory priorities and provides the same level of protection to all of your employees.
In addition, and hopefully this is just an obvious point, safety matters because your people matter. You want your employees to go home every day in the same condition in which they arrive at work, and while regulations provide some of the framework for doing that, regulations are not the reason why you care about employee safety in the first place. You care because it’s just a fundamental part of being a human being who understands they have a responsibility toward other human beings.
Of course, there are tangible benefits to prioritizing safety, as well. You’ll decrease the number of injuries and associated costs, for one thing. For another, the data shows that prioritizing safety leads to improved employee morale, higher productivity, and lower turnover rates.
How does a strong safety culture contribute to business resilience, productivity, and profitability?
Part of it is what we’ve talked about already, which is liberating your company’s safety management system from changing regulatory and enforcement climates by benchmarking best practices. That approach is going to bring more stability, because you won’t find yourself in situations where you feel like you have to scramble to revise your safety management practices, with all the lost productivity and additional financial costs that can bring.
Also, in a world where stakeholders like investors and value chain partners increasingly look at safety performance as a criterion for doing business with someone, being able to show you manage safety at a consistently high level is only going to help. Think back to all the supply chain disruptions businesses had in 022-2023. Good relationships with your supply chain partners can help reduce the potential for these kinds of disruptions and better weather supply chain stresses.
How can organizations structure their safety programs to remain stable and effective regardless of regulatory or political changes?
The short answer is that they’d benefit from a safety management system approach. I like to say that policies are about doing things right, and culture is about doing things right every time. The hallmark of a good safety management system is that you’re building both of those things. Your safety management system consists of all of the people, places (e.g., worksites and facilities) and programs involved in your oversight of safety. In fact, you need good policies to develop a good culture, but once you have a good culture, you’ll have an easier time sustaining the policies.
It's a good idea for organizations to certify to or follow ISO 45001, the international standard for Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) management systems. Certification is the better option because of the level of commitment involved – you have to take the process of aligning to 45001 seriously, because you have to go through audits to confirm that you’re doing the right things. Barring that, getting familiar with ISO 45001 and its model for effective safety management is going to give you the guidance you need to build safety maturity, because it spells out some of the things you need to do.
What distinguishes companies that go beyond compliance in their approach to workplace safety?
I’d suggest a good umbrella criterion would be continuous improvement, a concept central to ISO 45001, as well as all other ISO standards. It means that you’re regularly reviewing data on your safety performance and looking for ways to improve.
Continuous improvement is going to be a lot more achievable when you also have a foundation built in the other aspects of a safety management system according to ISO 45001. For example, the standard emphases the importance of identifying hazards, risks and opportunities, which is more proactive than just focusing on compliance, although part of the standard states that you need a system for identifying legal requirements, too. The standard also states that you need the “consultation and participation” of your workers, including frontline workers, in safety management, because the idea there is to get insights from the people most familiar with the job tasks and the potential risks and hazards associated with them.
You also need to choose and track the right metrics for your business, which are going to be the ones you’ve determined are most closely related to improved safety performance for you. Without good data, you won’t have the insights into your performance you need to continuously improve. But without the other elements, like a commitment to identifying and controlling risks and involving your people in safety, you won’t have that data.
What are warning signs that a company’s safety program is too reactive rather than proactive?
I’d propose a very simple test. If anyone thinking about the changing US regulatory environment feels anxiety about changes they think they’ll need to make to their management system, it’s a sign that they’re not ready.
Other warning signs, probably connected to that one, are that safety management feels like an “island” isolated from everything else the company does, with people with “Safety” in their job titles doing most of the work, and a “to do” list that never seems to ger any shorter. That long punch-list results partially from inability to share responsibility for key safety tasks, and partly from methods for completing the tasks being disparate and unconnected. For example, many companies may have software for managing access to safety data sheets (SDSs), but that software is completely separate from software they use for managing ergonomics.
What key elements make a safety management system resilient to shifts in government regulations?
The elements that will help you do that align well with the elements of an effective OH&S management system as described by ISO 45001. In particular, they’re the aspects that help you manage the important tasks you need to complete. I often call general safety management, chemical management, ergonomics and operational risk management the “four pillars” of a safety program, because they give you the broad view of hazards and risks you need. But you also need to do all these things easily and efficiently, and that includes the ability to share responsibility for some of the key tasks and also access your data from anywhere.
What practical steps can companies take to mature their safety programs and build resilience by "compliance-proofing" their operations?
Make sure you have the support you need to build the safety management system your employees deserve. You need to build engagement and get that to-do list shorter, and the right software can help.
Safety professionals who do explore software should look into the benefits of a true platform that gives you one roof over your four pillars of safety, chemical, ergonomics and operational risk management. Look for a platform with a single sign-on, with easy ability to assign admin roles and manage your different worksites using a location tree. The best platforms also have strategically integrated AI capabilities, such as 3-D ergonomics assessments that use machine learning to provide expertise gleaned from real professional ergonomists on identification of root causes and selection of appropriate controls. And with a true platform, you have access to all your data for all facilities and across all capabilities in one place.
With the right support, you’ll have a management system that’s resilient and will help you stay the course no matter what happens in the regulatory and enforcement world.