...the CPI’s investigation found that 65 percent of the worksites at which a worker died in a safety accident remained in the OSHA’s self policing Voluntary Protection Program. The investigation showed that OSHA did not even have a complete database of all the workplace deaths that had occurred at VPP sites.
As a result of the investigation, OSHA has ordered a task force to review the Voluntary Protection Program. “There are some legitimate questions out there about the legitimacy of the program, and we want to make sure that all the participants in the program should be in the program,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab told CPI.
However some the Voluntary Protection Program is a corporate welfare program that companies use to get free training and avoid safety regulation.
“If you look at the list of who is in the program, it’s big corporations. Why does a corporation making $5 billion a year in revenues need OSHA to pay for its safety training?“ asks Feldman. “It could hire the same staff at the same salary with its own money. The program should be focused on small business that requires such assistance. I don’t really see the program as anything more than something that can be used to buy political support for Democrats in the business community.”
