OSHA to Expand Voluntary Protection Programs without Assessing Benefits to Workers

On Monday, July 17, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) convened a public meeting to hear input from stakeholders about how the agency might grow and strengthen its Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP). Given the change in administration, the announcement was no surprise. Growing the VPP had also been a priority of the George W. Bush administration, during which time OSHA made plans to add thousands of new participants despite having no evidence the program improved worker health and safety. Resource constraints ultimately tempered OSHA's expansion plans, but not before the agency had damaged the VPP and eroded its integrity. With this history in mind, I attended a recent stakeholder meeting to urge the agency to learn from the past and reevaluate the VPP's performance and cost-effectiveness before it moves to expand it.