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.

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.

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’s Office of Inspector General will examine a federal program that recognizes “model workplaces” and exempts them from regular inspections, the office’s audit plan for the coming fiscal year shows.

The assessment comes as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration task force is conducting its own review of the agency’s Voluntary Protection Programs — the subject of a recent Center for Public Integrity investigation.

The Center found that, since 2000, more than 80 workers have died at sites OSHA deemed the nation’s safest. But even when investigators found serious safety violations related to the fatal accidents, OSHA rarely used its authority to remove sites from the program.

A federal task force is conducting a “top-to-bottom review” of a controversial program that exempts “model workplaces” from regular safety inspections, a Department of Labor official confirmed this week.

The review is focusing in part on “legitimate concerns” raised earlier this year in a Center for Public Integrity investigation, said Jordan Barab, the No. 2 official at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which runs the program.

The Center’s investigation found that, since 2000, more than 80 workers have died at workplaces in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs, known as VPP – a club of more than 2,400 sites that are supposed to be the nation’s safest. In more than half of these cases, the mandatory inspection triggered by the fatal accident found serious safety violations.  Yet these deaths rarely led to serious consequences for the company, and OSHA has seldom used its authority to boot a site from the program.

Among the questions the agency will have to address: What should happen when a worker is killed at one of these OSHA-recognized sites?

OSHA’s policy on responding to fatal accidents at VPP sites is one of “the first things we are looking at,” Barab said. The task force, which has six members pulled from OSHA’s local, regional and national offices, has submitted its report, which is being reviewed and will have to go through the agency’s lawyers, he said.

The document includes recommendations on how to improve the program, but Barab would not provide details. “I’m not saying we’re going to change everything, but we are looking at [the recommendations],” he said.

Worries about fires, explosions and chemical releases prompted the federal agency in charge of workplace safety on Wednesday to expand a special inspection program focusing on the nation’s chemical plants. Regulators believe the industry is particularly vulnerable to such hazards, meriting the closer attention.

Yet some plants will continue to be shielded from the special inspections, despite past worker deaths, because of their status as “model workplaces.”

“Far too many workers are injured and killed in preventable incidents at chemical facilities around the country,” said David Michaels, the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in announcing the broadening of the pilot program, which began in 2009.

Michaels said inspectors would “cover chemical facilities nationwide to ensure that all required measures are taken to protect workers.”

But the agency opted to exempt sites that participate in its Voluntary Protection Programs, known as VPP. As iWatch News has reported, more than 80 workers have died since 2000 at these sites OSHA has deemed “model workplaces” – from power plants to paper mills and shipyards. 

Companies, however, have rarely faced serious consequences, even when inspectors identified safety violations related to the fatal accident.

The exemption from regular inspections, including those conducted under special emphasis programs, has particular resonance for companies in the chemical manufacturing industry, which is both the target of the new initiative and the largest industry sector in VPP.