What Is OSHA? Employer Duties, Worker Rights, and Inspections

OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency inside the U.S. Department of Labor that writes workplace safety rules, inspects worksites, and enforces those rules against employers who violate them. Congress created it through the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to prevent job-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths before they happen.¹ Its reach covers millions of worksites across the country.²

What OSHA Does

OSHA’s job breaks down into three parts: writing enforceable safety standards, inspecting workplaces to confirm compliance, and offering training and outreach so employers can meet the rules without waiting for an inspector. The standards cover hazards like chemical exposure, falls, electrical dangers, and unguarded machinery, with separate rule sets for general industry, construction, maritime, and agriculture because each sector faces different risks.

The agency is preventive by design. It does not wait for someone to be hurt before acting; a hazard alone can trigger a citation.

Who OSHA Covers

OSHA’s rules apply to most private sector employers and their workers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. territories.³ If you run a business with even one employee, you are almost certainly covered.

Several groups fall outside OSHA’s authority:

Self-employed people with no employees.
Family farms where only immediate family members work.
Workplaces regulated by other federal agencies, including mines (Mine Safety and Health Administration), nuclear facilities (Department of Energy), and certain aviation and maritime working conditions (FAA or Coast Guard).⁴
State and local government employees in many states. Federal OSHA generally does not cover public sector workers unless the state runs an OSHA-approved plan.⁵

That last point surprises many public workers. If you work for a city, county, or state agency in a state without an approved plan, federal OSHA does not protect you, and your safety rights depend on whatever state law provides.

Federal OSHA vs. State Plans

States are allowed to run their own workplace safety programs instead of relying on federal OSHA, as long as those programs are at least as effective as the federal version.⁶ Currently, 22 states and Puerto Rico run plans covering both private and public sector workers. Seven other jurisdictions — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — run plans that cover only state and local government workers, with federal OSHA handling private employers there.⁵

State plans can be stricter than federal OSHA. California’s Cal/OSHA program often goes beyond federal minimums. In a state-plan state, the state agency, not federal OSHA, handles your inspections and enforcement.

What Employers Must Do

The General Duty Clause

Every covered employer must keep the workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm. This requirement in Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act, known as the General Duty Clause, catches dangerous conditions that no specific standard addresses.⁷ OSHA can cite under this clause only when four elements are present: employees were exposed to a hazard, the hazard was recognized, it could cause death or serious harm, and a feasible fix existed.⁸

Specific Duties Employers Miss Most

Beyond the General Duty Clause, employers face concrete requirements. The ones that trip up the most workplaces:

Provide required protective equipment at no cost to workers. Hard hats, gloves, goggles, and fall protection gear must be supplied by the employer when a standard calls for them, not paid for by the employee.⁹
Keep injury and illness records. Most employers with more than 10 employees must maintain an OSHA Form 300 log of every recordable work-related injury or illness.¹⁰
Report serious incidents quickly. A workplace fatality must be reported to OSHA within 8 hours. Any hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye must be reported within 24 hours.¹¹
Train workers in a language they actually understand. Safety training cannot be English-only if some employees do not speak English fluently.¹²
Display the official OSHA “Job Safety and Health” poster where employees can see it. The poster is free from OSHA.¹³

The Violations That Get Cited Most

OSHA publishes a top-10 list of its most cited standards each fiscal year, and the same problems dominate. For fiscal year 2025, the top five were:

Fall protection (1926.501): 5,914 violations, mostly on construction sites.
Hazard communication (1910.1200): 2,546 violations, mostly failures in chemical labeling and Safety Data Sheets.
Ladders (1926.1053): 2,405 violations.
Lockout/tagout (1910.147): 2,177 violations, involving failure to de-energize equipment during maintenance.
Respiratory protection (1910.134): 1,953 violations.

Fall protection has held first place for more than a decade. If you run a construction operation, that standard is the one most likely to bring a citation. For general industry, hazard communication and lockout/tagout deserve the closest attention. Hazard communication requires employers to keep Safety Data Sheets for every hazardous chemical on site, label containers properly, and train workers on the risks.¹⁴

Inspections, Citations, and Penalties

An inspection starts with a compliance officer showing credentials and holding an opening conference to explain why the workplace was selected. The employer picks a representative to accompany the officer during the walkaround, and employees or their authorized representative also have the right to join. The officer looks for hazards, reviews injury logs, and checks whether the OSHA poster is posted. A closing conference wraps up the visit and previews likely findings.¹⁵

A 2024 rule confirmed that workers can designate a non-employee representative, such as a union official or a safety consultant, to accompany the inspector, as long as that person is reasonably necessary for an effective inspection. Relevant expertise or language skills can meet that standard.¹⁶

When OSHA finds a violation, it issues a citation identifying the standard broken and a deadline to fix the problem. Maximum penalties, adjusted for inflation and effective after January 15, 2025, are:

Serious, Other-Than-Serious, or Posting violation: up to $16,550 per violation.
Failure to abate: up to $16,550 per day the hazard continues past the correction deadline.
Willful or Repeated violation: up to $165,514 per violation.¹⁷

These figures rise slightly each January with inflation, and OSHA can stack multiple violations from a single inspection.

Employers who disagree with a citation, penalty, or abatement deadline must file a written Notice of Intent to Contest with the local OSHA Area Director. The deadline is strict: the notice must be postmarked no later than the 15th working day after the citation is received. A phone call does not count; the notice must be in writing, though email is acceptable. Miss the window and the citation becomes a final, unappealable order.¹⁸ Contested cases go to the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission for adjudication. Employers can also request an informal conference during the 15-working-day window, but that conference does not pause the contest deadline.

Your Rights as a Worker

A Safe Workplace and Real Training

Every covered worker is entitled to a workplace free from serious recognized hazards, plus information and training about the specific dangers of the job, the methods used to prevent them, and the OSHA standards that apply. That training must be delivered in a language you understand.¹⁵

Filing a Complaint

If you believe your workplace has a serious hazard or your employer is not following OSHA standards, you can request a confidential inspection. You can file online, by phone at 1-800-321-OSHA (6742), or in writing by fax, mail, or email to your local OSHA office. Complaints can be filed anonymously, in any language, and by someone else on your behalf. A signed complaint is more likely to trigger an on-site inspection rather than just a phone inquiry.¹⁹

Refusing Dangerous Work

You can legally refuse a task in limited circumstances, but this is not an open-ended right to walk off the job. All four of these conditions must be met:

You asked your employer to fix the danger where possible, and the employer did not act.
You genuinely believe the situation poses a real risk of death or serious injury.
A reasonable person in your position would agree the danger is real.
The hazard is too urgent to wait for an OSHA inspection.²⁰

If any of those conditions is missing, refusing the work may not be legally protected. In less extreme situations, report the hazard and let OSHA investigate.

Protection Against Retaliation

It is illegal for an employer to fire, demote, transfer, or otherwise punish a worker for filing an OSHA complaint, participating in an inspection, or reporting an injury.²¹ If retaliation happens, you must file a whistleblower complaint with OSHA within 30 days of the retaliatory action. That deadline is firm. Miss it and you lose the claim.¹⁹ If OSHA finds the claim valid, it can bring a federal court action on your behalf, with relief that includes reinstatement and back pay.²²

Help for Small Businesses

If your business had 10 or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year, you are exempt from routinely keeping OSHA injury and illness records, regardless of industry. Businesses in certain low-hazard industries are also exempt from routine recordkeeping even if they have more than 10 employees.²³ These exemptions do not remove the duty to report fatalities and severe injuries to OSHA within the deadlines above.

OSHA also funds a free on-site consultation program for small employers. Safety specialists employed by state agencies or universities, not OSHA enforcement staff, will visit your workplace, identify hazards, and help you build a safety program. The visit is confidential and completely separate from enforcement, so it will not result in fines or citations. Your only obligation is to correct any serious hazards the consultant finds within a reasonable time. Request a visit at osha.gov/consultation or by calling 1-800-321-OSHA.²⁴

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