The proposed regulatory changes follow the signing of the Senate Act 606 (SB 606), which changed the sections of the work insurance 6317 and 6317.8 in 2021. Since the sections of the Labor Code 6317 and 6317.8 are similar to the guidelines on security and health administration (FED administration) of the Federal and Health Authority (FED), the proposed changes should also ensure that the enforcement program of CAL/OSHA is at least as effective as the program of the FED -SOH.
SB 606 created “a refutation that a violation committed by an employer with several construction sites is a company -wide if the employer has a written guideline or a written procedure that violates these provisions … or the department has evidence of a pattern or practice of the same violation that have committed this employer with more than one of the workers' jobs. Keeping -wide quotation that is subject to the same punishment as intentional or repeated injury.
SB 606 also authorizes Cal/Osha to spend outrage and intentional violations if one or more of the converted list of circumstances is true. The list contains deliberate disregard for security and health responsibility, no adequate efforts to eliminate a well-known violation, high rates of injuries or diseases of employees and an extensive history of previous violations. SB 606 requires that every instance of an employee who is exposed to an outrageous violation “is considered a separate violation for the issue of fines and punishments”. This is codified in Section 6317.8 of the working society.
Corporate -wide violations
In the following you will find the proposed regulatory text in relation to company -wide violations and punishments.
8 CCR § 334. Classification of violations and definitions
(g) Corporate violation-ES will give a refutation of the assumption that a violation is undertaken when an employer has employees in several jobs and is one of the following statements:
- The employer has a written guideline or a procedure that applies to more than one construction site and violates the health and security code or for standards, rule, order or regulation of Chapter 140) of Department 1 or Department 5 of the Labor Code.
- The division has references to a pattern or a practice of the same violations or violations in which more than one of the employers of the employer is involved.
8 CCR § 336. Assessment of civil penalty
(k) Corporate-wide violations
(1) The proposed punishment is multiplied by the number of construction sites, which are covered by the enterprising quote at the time of inspection.
(2) If the proposed punishment is multiplied by the number of covered construction sites, only the classification or characterization is used for every violation of calculating the proposed punishment. Any repeated, intentional or outrageous classification, accident -related characterization or a loan that does not apply to every violation must not be used to calculate the proposed punishment. For example, an employer has three covered construction sites. There is a serious, accident -related violation on a construction site. There are two serious violations at the other two construction sites. In order to calculate the proposed punishment, the serious classification is used for the calculation. However, if there are serious, accident -related violations in all three covered construction sites, the serious, accident -related classification and characterization are used to calculate the proposed punishment.
(3) If the proposed punishment is multiplied by the number of construction sites covered, there will be (1) the assumption that severity and dimensions are moderate and (2) the adaptation factors of good faith, size and history are assessed on the basis of the covered construction sites. According to its own discretion, the department may differ from the previous criteria based on the facts and information collected during the examination.
The resulting punishment must not exceed $ 158,727.
Outrageous violations
Below you will find the proposed regulatory text on outrageous violations and punishments.
8 CCR § 334. Classification of violations and definitions
(f) Honestive violation – is a deliberate violation, according to the sub -section (e), whereby:
(1) The employer has a previous enormous violation that remains specified in paragraph 4; or
(2) Within the five years before the issue of a quota for an outrageous violation, one or more of the following statements for the employer or their actions were used:
(A) The employer intentionally did no appropriate efforts through conscious, voluntary action or inactivity to eliminate the known violation.
(B) The employer has a prehistory of (1) one or more repeated or intentional violations; or (2) five or more serious violations per 100 employees; or (3) twenty or general or regulatory violations per 100 employees.
(C) The employer intentionally ignored his health and security responsibility, for example by not being abstained from a program assumed in accordance with the Labor Code for operational injuries and illnesses, the applicable provisions of the Californian occupational safety authority for the Californian occupational safety and health standard, which the security and health health authority and the Californian Security act and the law on the health health authorities and the law on the health system of the California food or the law on healthcare.
(D) The behavior of the employer, which was taken as a whole, is a bad belief in fulfilling their duties to comply with the security and health standards of professional compliance.
(E) Within the five years before a quote because of an outrageous violation, the employer committed more than five violations of the Standard Title 8 standard, which has become final provisions based on: (1) a final order that confirms the existence of the previous violation; Or (2) The previous quote will be final by lawyer.
(F) The violations led to deaths for workers, a construction site disaster or five or more injuries or illnesses. For the purposes of this sub -section, “disasters” means that the inpatient hospital stay is caused by three or more employees due to an injury, illness or exposure due to a danger or illness at the workplace.
(G) Within the 12 months immediately before the underlying violation, 10% of all employees were defined on the cited construction site at the workplace injuries or diseases in accordance with section 330, sub -section (H).
(3) A quote for a outrageous violation remains in force for a period of five years from the last date of the final arrangement, which confirms the quote, or the date on which the quote becomes final through the operation of the law.
8 CCR § 336. Assessment of civil penalty
(i) Honestive violation – if a intentional violation is determined as tremendously (as stated in accordance with Section 334 (f) of this article), the department expects a separate quote with a separate -proposed punishment, which was calculated according to the sub -section (h) of this section for each instance of an employee. For the purposes of this section, “every instance” means the exposure of a single employee compared to the violation. For example, if a violation of ten (10) employees of danger, there are ten (10) cases with ten (10) separate punishments.
The impact of the proposed changes on the employer is several times. First, for employers who have several jobs and company -wide guidelines or procedures, a violation of a job situation that has increased the work of an increased penalties. The proposed punishment would be multiplied by the number of jobs from the company. For example, a penalty of 10,000 US dollars would lead to a penalty of $ 100,000 in the work of a company with 10 construction sites. (We find that the proposed changes are unclear whether workplaces outside of California will be included in the “number” of corporate work pages.) Secondly, an intentional violation could be classified as outrageous, based on the behavioral and citation history of an employer in the past five years, which is a considerably long Lookback period. And of course the impact of outrageous violations is increased punishments due to the basis of exposure. For example, if 10 employees were exposed to a risk associated with a violation of $ 10,000, the resulting punishment would now be $ 100,000.
Overall, California employers should be prepared for increased penalties as part of the new enforcement scheme announced by SB 606. Employers with several construction sites should closely check the company guidelines and procedures, since they could be suspended on individual construction sites. Employers of all sizes should check their citation history in the past five years to determine whether the company could be exposed to outrageous violations.
Contact your regular Pillsbury contact or the authors of this warning for questions about Cal/Osha or Fed Osha.