Forewarned is forearmed: OSHA has now put in place a stricter rule that could quickly rack up penalty costs for contractors exposing workers to life-threatening hazards.

According to a January 2023 memo, OSHA now has the authority to cite multiple “instance-by-instance citations” for cases deemed “high-gravity” serious violations of OSHA standards for certain conditions, including lockout/tagout, machine guarding, permit-required confined space, respiratory protection, falls and trenching, as well as cases with other-than-serious violations specific to recordkeeping.

OSHA has the discretion to not group violations, and instead cite them separately to more effectively encourage employers to comply with the intent of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

“Smart, impactful enforcement means using all the tools available to us when an employer ‘doesn’t get it’ and will respond to only additional deterrence in the form of increased citations and penalties,” said Doug Parker, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, in a press release announcing the new rule. “This is intended to be a targeted strategy for those employers who repeatedly choose to put profits before their employees’ safety, health and well-being,” and that those who do so “will face more serious consequences.”

The statistics are sobering: a worker is three times more likely to die on a construction site than in general industry, Scott Ketcham, director of OSHA’s Directorate of Construction, told attendees at the American Bar Association’s 2023 Midwinter Meeting of the Workplace and Occupational Safety and Health Law Committee on March 10, 2023.

While 40% of deaths are related to falls, there is a “disturbing” increase in the rate of trench fatalities, Ketcham told attendees. One of those attendees was Sean Paisan, an attorney in the office of Jackson Lewis PC law firm, Irvine, Calif., who wrote about the meeting in a March 2023 blog post.

Ketcham reiterated that if an OSHA compliance safety and health officer “happens to drive by a site and sees an excavation, they are required to stop and inspect,” Paisan wrote. “This was ‘near and dear to OSHA’s heart’ and OSHA has been issuing more willful citations because, most of the time, the protective equipment for an open trench is on-site, just not in the trench itself.”

The agency also plans to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the type of personal protective equipment that would be most appropriate for women, Paisan wrote. Other initiatives include a pilot program for safety helmets¾hardhats with chin straps¾and a suicide prevention campaign, considering that the suicide rate in construction is much higher than other industries.

Ketcham also said that OSHA will be stepping up inspections on all the new projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, according to Paisan. As newer, smaller companies with less safety resources will likely win some of the bids for the projects, OSHA has developed a dedicated webpage detailing industry best practices, sample safety and health programs, training materials and many other resources to help those companies.