So-called “model workplaces” that won exemptions from regular inspections will now face greater scrutiny, amid concern over deaths and safety breakdowns at some plants held up as industry leaders.

A report suggesting reforms, from a task force of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, comes more than a year after a Center for Public Integrity series revealed that deadly accidents and serious safety violations at these sites had gone largely unpunished by OSHA.

The report about the agency’s Voluntary Protections Programs, known as VPP, recommends that OSHA overhaul its policies for responding to serious accidents at these sites. Regional officials should thoroughly re-evaluate sites that have such problems, the report said, and they should have broader authority to kick out problem workplaces. The agency also should suspend sites while investigations are ongoing, the report recommended.

"This report will serve as a valuable road map for the agency as we continue to address issues present in VPP," Jordan Barab, OSHA's No. 2 official, said in a statement. "In general, we agree with most of the findings of the report, and have already or will be implementing a number of substantive changes to the program based on the recommendations included."

The association representing companies in the “model workplace” program is holding its annual conference in Anaheim, Calif., and no one from the organization could be reached for comment Monday.

The task force, composed almost entirely of regional and local OSHA officials, identified muddled guidance, inaccurate data and regional inconsistencies that have led to problems within the program.

Oil giant BP has agreed to pay $13 million in fines to settle more than 400 safety violations at a Texas refinery that suffered a catastrophic explosion in 2005, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Thursday.

The violations stemmed from a 2009 inspection of BP’s Texas City refinery by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA conducted the inspection to see if BP had corrected safety problems that led to the 2005 blast, which killed 15 workers and injured at least 170. It hadn't.

The settlement “will help ensure that workers don’t have to sacrifice their lives for their livelihood,” Solis said in a teleconference with reporters. “This agreement will save lives.” BP has promised to fix all the cited problems in Texas City by the end of this year.

Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, said that none of the uncorrected problems is “imminently dangerous.”

BP paid $21 million in fines for violations related to the 2005 explosion. After doing its follow-up inspection in 2009, OSHA cited the company for 270 “failure to abate” violations. BP agreed in 2010 to pay $50.6 million more to resolve those citations.

During the same inspection, OSHA found 439 additional violations and proposed penalties of almost $31 million. The $13 million settlement announced Thursday resolves all but 30 of those violations, which are still being challenged by BP.

BP’s safety performance “significantly improved” after the 2009 inspection and fines, Barab said. “The takeaway is that enforcement works,” he said.

In a press release, Iain Conn, BP’s global head of refining and marketing, said the company aims to be a leader in process safety — the prevention of potentially calamitous fires, explosions and chemical releases. “Today’s agreement represents another milestone in our commitment to safe and compliant operations,” Conn said.

Citing a 2011 Center for Public Integrity investigation, a Labor Department official said Thursday that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has reformed a program that rewards workplaces reporting lower-than-average injury and illness rates.

OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP), which exempt “model workplaces” from routine inspections, were established in 1982. VPP tripled in size between 2000 and 2011, as OSHA’s inspection staff diminished and membership requirements were relaxed. The Center’s investigation found that at least 80 workers had died at VPP sites during that period.

At a hearing before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Jordan Barab, the Labor Department’s deputy assistant secretary for occupational safety and health, said the department “is committed to VPP. But like every other federal agency, we need to make some very hard decisions about how to allocate our limited resources where we will get the most worker protection bang for our buck.”

After the Center’s investigation, an internal OSHA workgroup reviewed VPP and submitted recommendations for improved management, Barab said. Reforms include increased funding for a program that offers free advice to small businesses on worker safety practices, he said. A whistleblower program has been expanded, with four new laws designed to protect workers from retaliation for reporting potential safety hazards.

Barab also reported a shift away from incentive programs based on keeping injury and illness rates low. Such programs often discourage workers from reporting injuries, he said; OSHA now promotes programs that encourage and reward employee involvement instead.

Diesel engine exhaust is “carcinogenic to humans,” an international health body declared Tuesday, bolstering the findings of a controversial study published recently in the United States.

After a weeklong meeting of experts in Lyon, France, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, said there is “sufficient evidence that exposure [to diesel exhaust] is associated with an increased risk for lung cancer.” IARC also found “limited evidence” that diesel is linked to a heightened risk of bladder cancer.

IARC previously had classified the fumes — emitted from trucks, trains, ships, buses, mining equipment and other sources — as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

The IARC finding is consistent with a study of 12,000 U.S. miners published earlier this year by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. That study, publication of which was held up for years by mining industry litigation, found that the lung cancer risk for non-smoking, heavily exposed miners was seven times higher than it was for those exposed to low doses. Some industry-funded scientists have questioned the study’s conclusions.

Both the IARC and the U.S. studies have implications for the general public — especially people who live near ports, highways and rail yards — as well as workers.

A whistleblower who was fired by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after complaining publicly about the poor quality of injury and illness data kept by employers has won a major court victory.

Robert Whitmore, a supervisory economist with OSHA’s Office of Statistical Analysis, lost his job in 2009, ostensibly for insubordination. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that Whitmore was fired in retaliation for telling journalists and Congress about OSHA’s failure to crack down on companies submitting suspect data. OSHA is supposed to use the data to identify potentially unsafe workplaces; accuracy, therefore, is crucial.

The Merit Systems Protection Board upheld Whitmore’s firing, finding that he had acted in a threatening manner toward a supervisor. The appeals court, however, found that OSHA failed to provide “clear and convincing” evidence that Whitmore’s whistleblowing had no bearing on his dismissal. The case will go back to the board for rehearing.

The court found that Whitmore’s airing of concerns about employer recordkeeping, beginning in 2005, led to “increasingly strained relationships with OSHA officials” and “paralleled his increasingly poor performance reviews and adverse personnel actions after decades of exceptional service.”

The court went on: “Despite Robert Whitmore’s highly unprofessional and intimidating conduct, which may well ultimately justify some adverse personnel action, he is nevertheless a bona fide whistleblower.”

As federal regulators review a controversial program exempting government designated “model workplaces” from regular safety checks, newly released U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration records detail significant safety risks, injuries and even deaths at the sites across Massachusetts.

OSHA, the federal overseer of workplace safety, has also allowed some Massachusetts employers to retain their “Voluntary Protection Program” (VPP) status even after serious safety problems have been exposed or workers have been killed, according to more than 1,000 documents obtained by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting under a federal Freedom of Information Act request.

The VPP designation frees employers from regular health and safety inspections, and they are largely left to police themselves, a flaw that has contributed to the death of at least two Massachusetts workers, some critics said.

“If you're a VPP program, that should never happen,” said James Lee, a trustee with the American Postal Workers Union Local 497 and a member of the OSHA investigating team that reviewed a horrific 2006 fatal accident at a U.S. Postal facility in Springfield, Mass.  

“This would never have occurred if (OSHA) came in more frequently,” Lee said.

OSHA rarely strips VPP sites of their special status, even after violations are found or fatal tragedies occur, like the death of postal worker Robert J. Scanlon in Springfield and the 2004 death of a 34-year-old mother of three who was accidentally sucked into an adhesive coating machine at a Spencer, Mass., manufacturing firm, the OSHA documents show.

The Department of Labor reported today that 4,690 U.S. workers suffered fatal injuries in 2010, a 3 percent increase from 2009.

The higher number in part reflects a string of high-profile disasters in 2010: An explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia that killed 29; BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, which killed 11; and a blast at the Tesoro Corp.’s oil refinery in Washington State that killed seven.

Even discounting the 47 deaths from those three events, the toll rose in 2010. In 2009, 4,551 workers died, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The fatality rate rose slightly as well, from 3.5 fatal injuries per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers to 3.6.

The number of workers killed in fires or explosions jumped from 113 in 2009 to 191 in 2010. Work-related transportation deaths increased from 1,795 to 1,857, suicides from 263 to 270.

The number of construction-related deaths fell from 834 to 774 — a probable reflection of a weak housing market and a generally rotten economy in 2010.

“It’s disturbing that there hasn’t been any improvement in workplace fatalities in several years,” said Peg Seminario, director of health and safety for the AFL-CIO. “It seems like progress has stalled.”

Small doses can have big health effects.

That is a main finding of a report, three years in the making, published Wednesday by a team of 12 scientists who study hormone-altering chemicals.

Dozens of substances that can mimic or block estrogen, testosterone and other hormones are found in the environment, the food supply and consumer products, including plastics, pesticides and cosmetics. One of the biggest, longest-lasting controversies about these chemicals is whether the tiny doses that most people are exposed to are harmful.

In the new report, researchers led by Tufts University’s Laura Vandenberg concluded after examining hundreds of studies that health effects “are remarkably common” when people or animals are exposed to low doses of endocrine-disrupting compounds. As examples, they provide evidence for several controversial chemicals, including bisphenol A, found in polycarbonate plastic, canned foods and paper receipts, and the pesticide atrazine, used in large volumes mainly on corn.

The scientists concluded that scientific evidence “clearly indicates that low doses cannot be ignored.” They cited evidence of a wide range of health effects in people — from fetuses to aging adults — including links to infertility, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer and other disorders.

“Whether low doses of endocrine-disrupting compounds influence human disorders is no longer conjecture, as epidemiological studies show that environmental exposures are associated with human diseases and disabilities,” they wrote.

In addition, the scientists took on the issue of whether a decades-old strategy for testing most chemicals — exposing lab rodents to high doses then extrapolating down for real-life human exposures — is adequate to protect people.

In the space of a minute, federal prison worker Jason Unwin was twice attacked by a furious, muscle-bound inmate on Dec. 21, 2010.

Agitated after a disciplinary hearing, the inmate first punched one of Unwin’s colleagues in the face, knocking him unconscious. He then turned to Unwin, a correctional counselor at the United States Penitentiary in Florence, Colo. “I was hit square in the face,” said Unwin, 51.

With a bloodied Unwin in pursuit, the inmate walked off. Seconds later, with Unwin briefly distracted, the inmate “blindsided me. He hit me with a closed fist, very hard, on the left side of the head. I was knocked unconscious.”

Unwin, a Federal Bureau of Prisons employee for 16 years, hasn’t worked since. He doesn’t have a full range of motion in his right shoulder, he said, and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He has short-term memory problems, sleeps irregularly and faces seizure risks.

The saving grace: He is covered by a 96-year-old compensation program for injured federal workers. Under the Federal Employees Compensation Act of 1916 (FECA), he receives 75 percent of his former salary, tax-free; his monthly income is within a few hundred dollars of his previous salary.

Legislation pending in the U.S. Senate, however, ultimately would cut Unwin’s benefits and could affect many other government workers — especially those with modest incomes — in the future.

The measure, championed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is included in a postal reform bill that may come up for a vote this month. Collins said it would stamp out abuses while saving money.

Yet officials with federal employees’ unions say the legislation would unfairly punish victims of workplace violence and other traumatic injuries — and their families.