Today the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a previously restricted report with some alarming conclusions about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Whistleblower Protection Program:
Serious questions remain about whether the whistleblower program is appropriately structured or that the national office has sufficient control mechanisms to ensure the quality and consistency of investigations.
According to GAO, the program's effectiveness is hampered by two key problems:
- "OSHA established training curricula for investigators, but has done little to ensure that investigators attend mandatory training."
- "OSHA has not ensured that investigators have the necessary tools to do their jobs."
Underscoring the need to address these problems are two key charts:
OSHA operates the program through ten different regional offices. The need for investigator equipment and the lack of investigator training varies from office to office, according to the GAO.
Unfortunately these programs aren't exactly new: GAO notes that it identified some of these problems over a year ago, and that its recommendations from its previous review have not been fully addressed. Furthermore, the GAO notes that for the last two decades, OSHA has "focused too little attention on the program."
You can read the GAO's full report on OSHA's Whistleblower Protection Program here.
-- Bryan Rahija
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