Officials from the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) penned a letter to the Industrial Commission of Arizona to warn them that their practice of reducing fines on companies that have had injured workers violates the law and could undermine their safety program.

Arizona OSHA director Zachary Barnett wrote to the commission after the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health brought it to the administration’s attention, and he urged them to end this practice. An investigation revealed that the commission had been lowering fines without following guidelines and had been reclassifying violations, and they were seemingly lowering fines for companies with no standard system or procedure in place.

Arizona is allowed to operate their own workplace safety agency rather than have a federal agency in place as long as it meets the same level of standards. It operates as the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH) which is overseen by the Industrial Commission of Arizona.

The commission argues that they have not been operating outside OSHA rules and contend that their safety oversight and review of citations is in line with the law and OSHA regulations. OSHA sets pre-defined criteria for agencies to use when it comes to reviewing citations, things like employer size and health and safety history. OSHA contends that the commission gave employers additional reductions after applying these standard calculations.

Bob Charles, Spokesman for the Industrial Commission, said that the state has seen a decrease in injury rates over the last ten years. Mr. Barnett said they are also updating their maximum penalties, after the vote to increase OSHA maximum penalties to account for inflation.

The commission has tried to include employers in their reviews. One employer, Ray Byrne, owns a roofing company and says that many workers make the choice not to use safety gear like fall-protection. The employees are engaging in misconduct and his company is getting cited. He is happy to have a say in the review process. The Industrial Commission Chairman Dale Schultz said that employees are also invited to speak at Industrial Commission meetings, however former OSHA policy analyst Celeste Monforton says that she doesn’t think many employees would be willing to challenge their boss’ statements in public.

One Arizona publication, The Arizona Daily Star found that the commission had reviewed 139 penalty proposals between January and the end of November of last year, and over half of the proposed penalties were reduced for a total of $186,000 in reductions. They review penalties that exceed $2,500. Nationally, the average final penalty for a serious violation in 2015 was $1,598. In Arizona it was $960. The national average fine for a workplace incident in which a worker was killed was $9,721. In Arizona it was $2,759.

A project safety consultant for the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, Peter Dooley, said, “When you reduce fines and downgrade violations again and again, you’re sending a message that workers’ lives are not valued.”

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