Two things became clear during yesterday’s joint legislative hearing in the wake of a state audit questioning Cal/OSHA’s performance: Lawmakers don’t see the agency’s problems as purely a function of personnel shortages, but also as one of leadership. They fully intend to keep it in their crosshairs.
The hearing of the Joint Legislative Audit, Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement, and Assembly Labor and Employment (L&E) committees followed up on the July report by State Auditor Grant Parks. L&E Chair Liz Ortega (D-Hayward) called for the audit after hearing workplace safety complaints from farmworkers.
“The audit has made it very clear what I have known for some time, and that is that Cal/OSHA is not working,” she says. “The scale of Cal/OSHA’s tasks, the lives lost, and the duration of the problem calls for an approach beyond just staffing. What we really need to focus on is structural change.”
Added Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), “The results of this audit were stunning.”
The State Auditor attributed most of Cal/OSHA’s problems to staffing shortages, also faulting outdated policies and procedures and the lack of an electronic case management system. (The Department of Industrial Relations is in the process of building such a system, which could be operational by 2027.)
The audit also questioned the agency’s use of letter investigations (which Ortega called “phony letters”), a practice that burgeoned during the pandemic as Cal/OSHA received literally thousands of complaints. The auditor says letter investigations, where employers are expected to verify abatement, comprise 80% of cases.
“Employers not providing clear evidence that they fixed unsafe working conditions was a common observation,” Park says. The audit also stated that managers often did not document the reasons for reducing initial penalty amounts and the reasons for settlement reductions.
Cal/OSHA Chief Debra Lee and Deputy Chief for Enforcement David Wesley were in the hot seat at the hearing. Lee says the Division of Occupational Safety and Health accepts the audit findings and is “already working to fix issues identified by the state auditor.”
Ortega subjected the DOSH officials to withering questioning. Regarding the lack of criminal referrals from the Bureau of Investigations, she asked, “When do you decide it’s time to hold an employer accountable? Is it after the first death? Is it after the second death? Is it after the third death?”
After Lee struggled to answer, looking up the relevant Labor Code section, Ortega replied, “I don’t have these codes memorized, nor did I have them when I met with the widow who showed me the video of her husband being crushed.” The legislator added, “I will be looking into legislation that ensures employers are held accountable.”
Smallwood-Cuevas also suggested legislation is warranted “to ensure oversight” on penalty reductions in fatality cases.
The state auditor will follow up with Cal/OSHA in mid-September on its efforts to implement its recommendations.
Joint committee chair John Harabedian (D-Pasadena) commented, “Cal/OSHA not only has a staffing problem, it has a leadership problem.”
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