The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a congressional “watchdog,” has issued recommendations to the U.S. Department of Labor’s OSHA and the Department of Defense aimed at helping them better track defense contractor safety violations. GAO was tasked with reviewing safety and health records of contractors and how they were handled by DoD, the largest contracting agency in the government, with $320 billion in contracts in 2017.
The GAO report noted that OSHA’s inspection data does not include a corporate identification number, which means “website users will likely have difficulty obtaining accurate information on individual companies’ previous violations,” such as whether the violations occurred on defense projects. DoD also may be missing opportunities to consider a company’s safety performance when awarding contracts, it continued, because only a few parts of the agency rate contractors in this category.
GAO recommends that OSHA consider requiring a corporate identification number as part of the information it collects during an inspection, and that DoD officials use OSHA’s website to find contractor safety information and consider requiring a safety performance rating for contractors engaging in construction and other risky types of work.
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A U.S. Appeals Court judge for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans 
In an effort to help construction contractors comply with its new 
OSHA reported that upon an inspection of one of Jasper’s residential projects in Jacksonville, FL, it found Jasper’s employees executing roofing work without fall protection and cited the company for failure to ensure employees were properly utilizing fall protection equipment, putting them at risk for an 8-foot fall. The agency also issued Jasper a violation for failing to make sure employees were wearing eye protection while they operated powered nail guns.
