On Thursday, July 18, 2024, Aaron Gelb, Mark Ishu, and Dan Deacon presented a webinar about National and Local Emphasis Programs.

Employers expect OSHA to show up after reporting a serious incident or when employees complain about certain types of hazards, but the agency has been focused now, more than ever it seems, on proactive enforcement methods.

As part of this strategy, OSHA has launched a series of new National Emphasis Programs (“NEP”) targeting heat illness, silica, and the warehousing industry, while also announcing a number of new Regional and Local Emphasis Programs (“REP” and “LEP”) across the country. Employers in the covered industries should take note because their establishments can be selected for an inspection under these programs even if they have an exemplary safety record, have not been subjected to any complaints, and have not recently reported a serious incident. Understanding these enforcement priorities is vital for companies to better prepare for potential regulatory inspections.

Additionally, the enforcement directives created by OSHA for these programs contain blueprints for how OSHA plans and conducts inspections of covered employers, so there is no excuse not to be prepared for the inevitable knock on the door. This was an informed discussion about what covered employers can expect if selected for an emphasis program inspection and what can be done now to prepare.

Participants in this webinar learned:

• • The various types of emphasis programs used by OSHA.
  • The differences between emphasis program inspections and incident/complaint inspections.
  • Emphasis program inspection and citation statistics.
  • Our personal experiences regarding inspections conducted under the newest emphasis programs.

The presenters shared suggestions, based on their experiences managing inspections, and helped attendees self-assess their organization’s readiness for programmed inspections.

We are pleased to share these links to a copy of the slides and a recording of the webinar.

This was the 6th webinar event in Conn Maciel Carey LLP’s 2024 OSHA Webinar Series.  If you would like to be automatically registered for all our future OSHA webinars, click here to send us an email request and we will get you registered.

If you missed any of our past webinars in our annual OSHA Webinar Series, view our OSHA Webinar Library to access all of our webinar recordings. Also, click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel and get an email notification when new recordings become available.