Southwest Industry News: March 2023
Abstract
Of Labor has called off its efforts to revoke Arizona's occupational health and safety plan after the state addressed federal officials' workplace safety and health concerns. Arizona lawmakers passed state laws to ensure penalty levels for safety violations track OSHA's annual adjustments and to authorize adoption of an ETS when the federal agency deems necessary. A spokesperson for the Industrial Commission of Arizona, which contains the state agency responsible for administering its workplace safety plan, said: "We are very pleased that federal OSHA recognizes all the great work that was done to protect Arizona's state plan and keep Arizona one of the safest states to work."Arizona is one of 21 states that operate its own state job safety programs with OSHA approval. Arizona gained final approval for its state plan in 1985.OSHA officials previously said they became concerned with Arizona's state plan in 2012 after state lawmakers moved to loosen some fall protection requirements. Prior to OSHA's reversal, construction industry groups in Arizona-had supported maintaining the state safety plan in comments to the federal agency. In its comment, AGC said the state operates "An exceptional occupational safety and health program that is more effective than most federally operated states."In a statement announcing its withdrawal, OSHA noted that it was making the move "Despite recent public reports of a downward trend in inspections in the plan's enforcement program," apparently referring to a January Arizona Republic newspaper report that found compliance inspections in the state had fallen 54% since 2014, primarily due to a decline in staffing. "OSHA takes these reports seriously, and the agency is actively working with the Arizona state plan to address these issues," the agency said in a statement.
