This week at the AIHce 2013 in Montreal, Canada Mr. Michael’s had the following to say about the current status and future of OSHA’s VPP…
“I’m a big supporter of VPP” said Michaels. “I’m committed to it and it is going forward. We do think it grew a little too fast before we arrived at OSHA. Right now, with budget money tight, VPP is not the place to put limited funds; that is for enforcement and outreach. So VPP re-certifications will go very slowly, and certifications will slow down. We have two (2) concerns with VPP:
- fatalities of contractors at VPP sites, and
- the 800-pound gorilla, rate-based incentive programs.
VPP sites must change if they have those programs. We are very concerned about employees not reporting injuries so the crew, the company, etc. can win bonuses and other rewards. We have lost some VPP companies who said we can’t change our programs.