For those of us living the process safety world, we will find this report laughable! By that I mean, we have to evaluate our contractor’s safety performance before hiring them to work in, on or adjacent to our covered processes, but apparently the government does not see the value in evaluating the contractors it hires! Each year, the United States pays out over $500 billion in taxpayer dollars to private companies for goods and services, much of which is used to pay the salaries of millions of workers. Taken together, companies that receive government contracts employ an estimated 22 percent of the American workforce, approximately 26 million workers. A recent analysis of government contractors found that almost 30 percent of the top violators of federal wage and safety laws are also current federal contractors. Specifically:
- Eighteen federal contractors were recipients of one of the largest 100 penalties issued by OSHA between 2007 and 2012. Almost half of the total initial penalty dollars assessed for OSHA violations were against companies holding federal contracts in 2012.
- Forty-two American workers died during this period as a result of OSHA violations by companies holding federal contracts in 2012.
- Thirty-two federal contractors received back wage assessments among the largest 100 issued by the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor between 2007 and 2012.
- Thirty-five of these companies violated both wage and safety laws.
- Overall, the 49 federal contractors responsible for large violations of federal labor laws were cited for 1,776 separate violations of these laws and paid $196 million in penalties and assessments. In the fiscal year 2012, these same companies were awarded $81 billion in taxpayer dollars.
Federal law is intended to prevent taxpayer dollars from increasing the profits of companies with a record of violating federal law in two ways:
- by requiring contracting officers to assess a prospective contractor’s responsible compliance with the federal law prior to awarding a contract, and
- by allowing agencies to suspend or debar contractors for certain behavior, including violations of federal law, in order to protect the integrity of taxpayer dollars.
CLICK HERE to read the entire congressional report