OSHA’s new policy of no longer making its workplace safety violation citations public unless pressed by a Freedom of Information Act demand may be legal but the practice will hurt enforcement efforts and slow some court actions.
“It’s very much not a good thing,” said Matthew Johnson, an associate professor at Duke University in North Carolina, who studied the affect releasing Occupational Safety and Health Administration violation details has on employers complying with safety regulations.
“I think the decision to make them not publicly available is contrary to the agency’s mission and will almost certainly have consequences that workers ...