August 4, 2003—The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is seeking comments on a proposed revision to its Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) that would change the benchmark injury and illness rates used to determine whether VPP applicants and participants meet the rate requirements for the VPP Star Program. This change would also apply to the requirements for construction applicants’ qualification for the Merit Program.
One way that OSHA determines the qualification of applicants and the continuing qualification of participants in the VPP Star Program, the most challenging participation category, is to compare their injury and illness rates to industry rates—benchmarks—published annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). For Star eligibility, rates must be below the benchmark BLS rates.
OSHA explains that some industries, for an unknown reason, have annual rate fluctuations of 20 to 30 percent and more. This creates an unpredictable moving target for VPP applicants that, in any particular year, may not fairly represent the injury and illness situation in an industry.
This proposed revision to the VPP is intended to lessen the effect of the BLS rate fluctuations by allowing the agency to use one out of the three most recent years of published BLS rates as its benchmark for Star qualification.
Comments on the proposed changes must be submitted by August 25, 2003. They can be submitted online to OSHA’s docket office at OSHA/E-Comments, or paper copies of comments and all attachments may be submitted in triplicate to OSHA Docket Office, Docket No. C-06, Room N-2625, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, US Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20210.
