On July 14, 2025, the US Department of Labor posted an announcement concerning changes to its OSHA Field Operations Manual regarding its efforts to reduce the burden on small businesses, leading to more prompt hazard abatement.
Keith Sonderling, Deputy Secretary of Labor, stated that by focusing on “employers who are working in good faith to comply with complex federal laws should not face the same penalties as large employers with abundant resources.” The purpose of the new guidance is to give smaller businesses the tools to keep workers safe without tampering their entrepreneurial spirit, hopefully leading to an investment into hazard reduction and compliance.
The revisions include guidelines for OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officers to reduce initial penalties by 15% to those employers who take immediate corrective actions. It also expands the penalty reduction of 70% to employers with 25 employees or less from the previous 10 employees or less. OSHA is encouraging its Field Enforcement Officers to offer a reduction of 20% to employers who have no history of “serious, willful, or repeat violations”, or a failure to abate a violation in the past 5 years.The new policy can be found in OSHA’s Field Operations Manual, Chapter 6, “Penalties and Debt Collection”.