OSHA is providing guidance on hearing protector fit testing, which isn’t required under occupational noise exposure standards but is considered a best practice.

“HPFT measures the amount of noise reduction (attenuation) a hearing protection device provides and can help train workers on what a properly inserted earplug ‘feels like’ in the ear,” OSHA says in a new safety and health information bulletin. “This tool allows workers to select the most effective HPDs that are comfortable, can be inserted correctly, and provide adequate noise reduction while allowing them to hear important communication and warning signals necessary for safety in the workplace.

Federal workplace safety regulators penalized three businesses over their failure to protect six Colorado dairy workers who were killed by exposure to highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas after a manure pipe disconnected in an enclosed space.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced proposed fines totaling $246,609 against the dairy owner and two contractors working on a manure management system. The deaths of five men and a teenager on Aug. 20, 2025, shocked the rural communities in and around Keenesburg, 35 miles (55 kilometers) northeast of Denver.

Many business leaders assume that a lack of "new" Fed OSHA workplace safety regulations equates to a period of regulatory calm and relaxed enforcement efforts by the agency. However, it has become apparent that developing a workplace safety and health strategy based on such an assumption could be a costly mistake.

While OSHA has launched an impressive number of initiatives intended to meet employers where they are, increase engagement, expand compliance assistance, and create new pathways to its voluntary recognition programs, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, David Keeling, has reiterated on several occasions that OSHA remains an enforcement agency that will continue inspecting and issuing citations to employers who fail to comply with applicable regulations.

While the incidence of workplace injuries has declined modestly since 2021, the total number of nonfatal injuries has remained consistently above 2.5 million per year. Likewise, the annual workplace death toll has remained stubbornly above 5,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The numbers fluctuate, but the outcome does not fundamentally change.

The account of accidents year after year suggests a familiar response:

Chemical Safety Board member Sylvia Johnson maintains that “robust regulation” can help prevent explosions involving combustible dust; however, OSHA hasn’t yet started rulemaking on a general industry standard.

CSB resounded its call for such a standard in a new agency video exploring what caused a fatal May 2017 explosion and fire at the Didion Milling dry corn mill in Cambria, WI. Five workers were killed and 14 others were injured.

A recent OSHA letter of interpretation explores whether a burn injury, caused by a set of personal lithium-ion batteries, is considered “work-related.”

The Jan. 20 letter outlines a scenario in which an employee brought rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for e-cigarettes into the workplace. The batteries allegedly came into contact with a key used for work, sparking a fire that burned the employee.

Lee Anne Jillings, director of OSHA’s Technical Support and Emergency Management Directorate, answers five employer questions stemming from the incident.

For many organizations, OSHA recordkeeping is viewed as an administrative obligation rather than a strategic safety function. Employers complete logs, post summaries, and submit electronic data, but do so largely just to avoid citations. That mindset misses the point.

OSHA never intended the Recordkeeping Standard to be a paperwork exercise. It is one of the agency’s oldest and most foundational rules because accurate injury and illness data is the backbone of effective workplace safety, both for regulators and for employers themselves.

Nearly 15,000 nurses from three of the city’s largest hospital systems are currently on strike over workplace safety, among other issues. According to a Documented analysis of 2024 injury report data from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, hospitals consistently rank among the workplaces with the highest number of reported injuries. Eight of the 10 employers in New York state with the most injuries in the analysis were hospitals. NYU Langone was the most injury-prone workplace, with Mount Sinai at number three and NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center at number five. The other two businesses included Stop & Shop and Delta Airlines at John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to the analysis.

OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration both face “significant challenges” in ensuring workers’ safety and health, according to a report from the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General.

In its annual U.S. Department of Labor’s Top Management and Performance Challenges report, published Jan. 29, OIG says the challenges are particularly acute for high-risk industries such as mining, health care, agriculture, construction, meatpacking, fishing, forestry and manufacturing.