Egregious violations consist of persistent high fatalities and an extensive history of previous violations. Egregious violations also include intentional disregard of health and safety responsibilities. OSHA argues that egregious violations ensure its efficiency and effectiveness. Egregious cases involve violation-by-violation penalties (Stanley, 2010). OSHA argues that egregious violation citations serve a public policy objective. They aim at increasing impact of OSHA's enforcement resources and are not primarily directed at individual workplaces. Each violation attracts one penalty, but egregious violations have potential for various penalties.
Penalties may be increased by multiplying them by the number of violation instances and the number employees exposed. According to egregious penalty policy, the case should qualify as willful and the violation leading to injuries for different penalties to qualify. This policy helps in the determination of proposed single penalty by grouping violations into one cited violation. Multiple violations can also arise from one incident, and different hazards cited separately. A penalty of not less than $5,000 and not more than $70,000 can be assessed in cases of willful violation. Separate penalties in egregious violation may also be assessed in each instance of violation. Each employee faced by a hazard constitutes a separate violation attracting potential fines of up to $1,000,000. Failure to abate also attracts a fine of up to $7,000.
Arguably, egregious violations have potential for multiple penalties. Penalties for various repeat violations are multiplied by 2 in the first instance, 5 in the second and 10 in the third repeat. A third repetition of violation would be multiplied by 15 and a fourth by 20. Penalties for egregious violations follow administrators discretion thus can attract different potential penalties depending on the respective violation.
Reference
Stanley, J., (2010). Health & Safety: OSHA Issuing More ‘egregious’ violations, but they may not hold up. Retrieved from http:// www.fdrsafety.com/WorkersCompAlert9-10- Egregious.pdf
