What Does it Mean to Be a Severe Violator?

When your company commits a severe violation (as per OSHA standards), you have put one or more employees in danger, possibly even resulting in on-the-job deaths. Although employers certainly do not intend to bring any amount of harm to their workers, severe safety violations are still a reflection on their employment practices and overall company environment.

OSHA will place companies in their “Severe Violator Enforcement Program” for a few different reasons, as follow:

1. Fatality/Catastrophe Criterion. A fatality/catastrophe inspection in which OSHA finds one or more willful or repeated violations orfailure-to-abate notices based on a serious violation related to a death of an employee or three or more hospitalizations.
2. Non-Fatality/Catastrophe Criterion Related to High-Emphasis Hazards. An inspection in which OSHA finds two or more willful orrepeated violations or failure-to-abate notices (or any combination of these violations/notices), based on high gravity serious violations related to a High-Emphasis Hazard.
3. Non-Fatality/Catastrophe Criterion for Hazards Due to the Potential Release of a Highly Hazardous Chemical (Process Safety Management). An inspection in which OSHA finds three or more willful or repeated violations or failure-to-abate notices (or any combination of these violations/notices), based on high gravity serious violations related to hazards due to the potential release of a highly hazardous chemical, as defined in the PSM standard.
4. Egregious Criterion. All egregious (e.g., per-instance citations) enforcement actions will be considered SVEP cases.

Because OSHA considers individual safety violations to be possible indicators of non-compliance in other areas, the SVEP requires inspections at the specific workplace where the severe violation occurred as well as inspections at related worksites across the US. The inspections conducted at these related worksites will be as intensive as possible, as the inspectors will be looking for indicators of other severe hazards in place in order to halt them before any more workers can be harmed.

If your company allows severe harm to your employees because of failure to comply with comprehensive safety regulations, your management will also fall into question. The only recourse beyond OSHA’s recommended fines and the actions that the Severe Violator Enforcement Program will impose is to willingly up your safety program so as to protect all of your employees against any future harm.