Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Workforce Protections, Committee 

on Education and the Workforce, 

House of Representatives 

United States General Accounting Office 

GAO

June 2004 OSHA’S COMPLAINT 

RESPONSE POLICIES

OSHA Credits Its 

Complaint System 

with Conserving 

Agency Resources, but 

the System Still 

Warrants 

Improvement 

GAO-04-658 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-658.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Robert 

Robertson, (202) 512-7215 

robertsonr@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-658, a report to the 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Workforce 

Protections, Committee on Education and 

the Workforce, House of Representatives 

June 2004

OSHA’S COMPLAINT RESPONSE 

POLICIES 

OSHA Credits Its Complaint System with 

Conserving Agency Resources, but the 

System Still Warrants Improvement 

In general, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 

responds to complaints according to the seriousness of the alleged hazard, a 

practice that agency officials say conserves inspection resources. OSHA 

officials usually conduct on-site inspections for alleged hazards that could 

result in death or serious injury. For less serious hazards, OSHA officials 

generally investigate by phoning employers and faxing them a description of 

the alleged hazard. Employers are directed to provide the agency with proof 

of the complaint’s resolution. OSHA officials said the availability of both 

options allows them to manage resources more effectively when responding 

to complaints. However, many agency officials we interviewed said some 

complainants provide erroneous information about the alleged hazard, 

which can affect the agency’s determination of the hazard’s severity. For 

example, some complainants lack the expertise to know what is truly 

hazardous and, as a result, file complaints that overstate the nature of the 

hazard. Others, particularly disgruntled ex-employees, may have ulterior 

motives when filing complaints and misrepresent the nature of the hazard. 

In the 42 area offices where we conducted interviews (there are 80 area 

offices), OSHA officials described practices for responding to complaints 

that varied considerably. For example, the degree to which supervisors 

participated in decisions about which complaints would result in inspections 

and which would not varied across offices. While OSHA requires annual 

audits that would identify the extent to which its area offices are correctly 

employing the complaint policies, some regions are not conducting these 

audits, and agency officials have told us that OSHA does not have a 

mechanism in place to address agencywide problems. 

To some extent complaints direct inspection resources where there are 

serious hazards. At half the worksites OSHA inspected in response to 

complaints, compliance officers found serious violations—those that posed 

a substantial probability of injury or death, according to OSHA’s own data 

for fiscal years 2000-2001. 

Potential Falls Are One of the Hazards OSHA Tries to Prevent 

Each year, OSHA receives 

thousands of complaints from 

employees alleging hazardous 

conditions at their worksites. How 

OSHA responds to these 

complaints—either by inspecting 

the worksite or through some other 

means—has important implications 

for both the agency’s resources and 

worker safety and health. 

Responding to invalid or erroneous 

complaints would deplete 

inspection resources that could be 

used to inspect or investigate other 

worksites. Not responding to 

complaints that warrant action 

runs counter to the agency’s 

mission to protect worker safety 

and health. Considering OSHA’s 

limited resources, and the 

importance of worker safety, GAO 

was asked: (1) What is OSHA’s 

current policy for responding to 

complaints in a way that conserves 

its resources, (2) how consistently 

is OSHA responding to complaints, 

and (3) to what extent have 

complaints led OSHA to identify 

serious hazards? 

The Secretary of Labor should take 

steps to improve the quality of 

information received from 

complainants and to ensure area 

offices comply with complaint 

practices established by the 

agency. Labor disagreed with our 

recommendation to take additional 

actions to improve the quality of 

complaint information, but 

generally it agreed with 

recommendations to ensure 

compliance with the agency’s 

complaint practices. 
Page i GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 4

Seriousness of Alleged Hazards Drives Complaint Response, 

although Erroneous Information Can Affect These 

Determinations 8

Although Consistent Handling of Complaints Is a Key OSHA 

Principle, Practices in Some Area Offices Varied 15

Complaints Have, to Some Extent, Drawn OSHA to Serious 

Hazards at Worksites 18

Conclusion 23

Recommendations for Executive Action 25

Agency Comments 26

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 28 

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Labor 30 

GAO Comments 33

Appendix III Staff Acknowledgments 34 

Staff Acknowledgments 34

Related GAO Products 35 

Tables 

Table 1: Number and Percentage of Inspected Worksites with 

Serious Violations, by Type, Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001 20

Table 2: National Average for Hours per Inspection, by Type of 

Inspection or Investigation, Fiscal Years 2000 to 2002 20

Table 3: Most Frequently Cited OSHA Standards for ComplaintDriven and Planned Inspections, Fiscal Years 2000 to 2002 21

Table 4: Ten Industries with Highest Rates and Ten Industries with 

Lowest Rates of Injuries and Illnesses and Corresponding 

Rate of Complaint Inspections, Calendar Year 2001 23

Contents 
Page ii GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Figures 

Figure 1: OSHA’s 10 Regions 7

Figure 2: Summary of OSHA’s Complaint Protocol 9

Figure 3: Correlation between an Industry’s Injury and Illness Rate 

and Its Complaint Inspection Rate, Calendar Year 2001 22

Abbreviations 

BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics 

IMIS Integrated Management Information System 

NLRA National Labor Relations Act 

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further 

permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or 

other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to 

reproduce this material separately. 
Page 1 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

June 18, 2004 

The Honorable Chairman, Charles Norwood 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, 

Committee on Education and the Workforce, 

House of Representatives 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

In 1975, high levels of Kepone, a pesticide linked to liver damage, sterility, 

neurological disorders, and cancer, were found in the bloodstreams of 

approximately 70 workers at a company in Virginia. This was followed by 

another discovery: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration 

(OSHA), part of the Department of Labor (Labor), had received a 

complaint from a former employee of the company but had assigned it a 

low-priority status and had not responded with an inspection. The highly 

public controversy that followed led OSHA to focus on being more 

responsive to all types of complaints. In the wake of this case, the agency 

has changed and modified its complaint policy more than once. OSHA’s 

first policy change, in 1975—to conduct an on-site inspection for virtually 

any complaint about unsafe conditions, even anonymous ones—resulted 

in a large and overwhelming backlog of complaints awaiting inspection. In 

1996, OSHA instituted a new effort to balance resources with the need to 

respond to complaints by responding to less serious complaints through 

means other than on-site inspections. In view of this reform, and given 

OSHA’s current ratio of one compliance officer for roughly every 6,000 

worksites, you asked us to answer the following questions: (1) What is 

OSHA’s current policy for responding to complaints in a way that 

conserves its resources? (2) How consistently is OSHA responding to 

complaints? and (3) To what extent have complaints led OSHA to identify 

serious hazards? 

To answer these questions, we visited the three OSHA area offices that 

handled the largest number of complaints in their respective regions in 

fiscal years 2000 through 2002: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Austin, Texas; 

and Denver, Colorado. In each of these offices, we examined a randomly 

selected sample of case files (34 in Pittsburgh, 30 in Austin, and 38 in 

Denver) and interviewed the area director and available compliance 

officers. In addition, we randomly selected and interviewed by telephone 

52 OSHA officials: 20 of the agency’s 80 area directors and 32 of its 

1,200 compliance officers, (12 assistant area directors who are supervisory 

United States General Accounting Office 

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

compliance officers and 20 nonsupervisory compliance officers). These 

officials represented 42 of OSHA’s 80 area offices. We also spoke to OSHA 

officials in the agency’s 10 regional offices, as well as health and safety 

officials in 13 states that run their own programs. Finally, we examined 

data for fiscal years 2000 through 2002 related to complaints in OSHA’s 

Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) and looked at data on 

injuries and illnesses collected and published by the Bureau of Labor 

Statistics (BLS) for calendar year 2001 as they related to complaints. We 

interviewed both OSHA and BLS officials to establish the reliability of the 

data. In addition, for the IMIS data we obtained and reviewed 

documentation of internal controls and manually tested the data. We also 

interviewed 15 randomly selected employers who had been the subject of 

an OSHA complaint and 6 employees who had filed complaints. For a 

more detailed explanation of our methodology, see appendix I. We 

conducted our work between September 2003 and January 2004 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

In general, OSHA responds to complaints according to the seriousness of 

the alleged hazard, a policy credited with conserving agency resources, 

although its determinations of whether an inspection is warranted can be 

affected by the quality of information complainants provide. Initiated in 

1996 to improve its complaint-handling process, OSHA’s policy of 

prioritization largely requires that an on-site inspection be conducted 

when a complainant alleges a serious hazard that could result in death or 

serious injury. OSHA will also conduct an on-site inspection if a current 

employee provides a written and signed complaint establishing reasonable 

grounds that a specific safety or health standard has been violated. 

Generally, however, for complainants not alleging a serious hazard, OSHA 

officials respond by phone, contacting employers and faxing them a 

description of the complaint. For these “phone/fax investigations,” 

employers must determine if the complaint is valid and submit 

documentation to demonstrate that the hazard has been removed. The 

phone/fax option for the less than serious hazards has helped to improve 

efficiency, according to OSHA officials with long-standing experience at 

the agency, who said it has saved time and also eliminated their inspection 

backlog. Most agency officials we interviewed also acknowledged, 

however, that this efficiency can be affected by the accuracy or validity of 

the information they receive from complainants. A complainant may 

misidentify a hazard, for example, or a competitor may misrepresent 

conditions at a competitor’s worksite to disrupt its operation, according to 

OSHA compliance officers. When asked, compliance officers and 

supervisors, as well as officials from states that run their own health and 

Results in Brief 
Page 3 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

safety programs, offered some suggestions for improving the validity of 

incoming complaints. 

Although OSHA has policies for responding to complaints in a systematic 

and timely manner, we found inconsistencies in practices across area 

offices. Some of these practices involved departures from agency policy, 

while others were practices that varied to a degree that could undermine 

the agency’s goal of consistent treatment of complainants and employers. 

In terms of policy, office practices departed, in particular, with regard to 

who evaluated complaints and how written and signed complaints were 

handled. With regard to uniform practice, we found some variation among 

the 42 offices we contacted in terms of their follow-up practices after an 

investigation, how they verified the employment status of complainants, 

how they treated e-mail complaints, and how they pursued certain 

complaints for which the agency has no specific standard. Since issuing its 

new directive for handling complaints in 1996, OSHA has issued no 

guidance to reinforce, clarify, or update those procedures. And while 

OSHA requires the regional administrators to annually audit their area 

office operations, only 5 of the 10 regions do so. Furthermore, for the 

regions that do conduct these audits, OSHA currently does not have a 

mechanism in place to recognize or address problems that have been 

identified at an agencywide level. 

Complaints have, to some extent, directed OSHA compliance officers to 

sites with serious hazards. According to OSHA’s own database for fiscal 

years 2000 and 2001, compliance officers found serious violations—

hazards that pose a substantial probability of injury or death—at half the 

worksites inspected in response to complaints. This 50 percent “success” 

rate for complaint-driven inspections is comparable to the agency’s 

success rate for some of its planned inspections—specifically those 

conducted at worksites targeted because of their high injury and illness 

rates. However, in one of our earlier reports on how OSHA targets 

inspections, we expressed concern that a 50 percent success rate may 

indicate that the agency is directing inspection resources to sites that have 

no serious violations.1

 In addition to this similarity, we also found that 7 of 

the 10 violations cited most frequently during complaint-driven 

inspections were also among the 10 most frequently cited during planned 

 1

See U.S. General Accounting Office, Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA Can Strengthen 

Enforcement through Improved Program Management, GAO-03-45 (Washington, D.C.: 

November 22, 2002). 
Page 4 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

inspections. Through our analysis, we also found some correlation 

between hazardous industries and complaint inspections. Specifically, 

those industries that, according to BLS data, had higher rates of injuries 

and illnesses also generally had higher rates of complaint inspections, 

according to OSHA’s data. For example, industries that fabricate metal 

products had the highest rate of complaint inspections and the third 

highest rate of injuries and illnesses in 2001. For a handful of industries, 

this pattern did not apply, with the number of complaints being either 

higher or lower than might have been expected, given the number of 

injuries, illnesses, and lost workdays. 

We are making recommendations that the Secretary of Labor direct the 

Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health to take steps to 

improve the quality of information elicited from complainants and take 

steps to ensure that practices carried out by area offices in response to 

complaints comply with those procedures established by the agency. In 

responding to a draft of this report, Labor agreed that it is important to 

screen out unwarranted and ill-founded complaints, but it stated that its 

current actions were sufficient and that it would not want to pursue 

actions that could discourage employees from exercising their right to 

request an inspection when they feel their workplace is unsafe. We 

maintain that OSHA could do more to improve the quality of complaint 

information and believe that better information could be collected without 

discouraging complaints. With regard to our recommendation to revise the 

directive on complaint policies, the agency stated that it has initiated a 

revision and that our recommendations would be thoroughly considered 

and incorporated where appropriate. Labor did not address our 

recommendations to develop a system for ensuring the regions complete 

audits and use the audit results to improve consistency of the complaint 

process. 

OSHA was established after the passage of the Occupational Safety and 

Health Act in 1970. In the broadest sense, OSHA was mandated to ensure 

safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women. The 

act authorizes OSHA to conduct “reasonable” inspections of any 

workplace or environment where work is performed by an employee of an 

employer.2

 The act also requires that OSHA conduct investigations in 

response to written and signed complaints of employees alleging that a 

violation of health or safety standards exists that threatens physical harm, 

or that an imminent danger exists at their worksites, unless OSHA 

 2

29 U.S.C § 657(a). 

Background 
Page 5 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

determines that there are no reasonable grounds for the allegations.3

OSHA inspections fall into two broad categories: those that are 

“programmed” and those that are “unprogrammed.” Programmed 

inspections are those the agency plans to conduct because it has targeted 

certain worksites due to their potential hazards. Unprogrammed 

inspections are not planned; instead, they are prompted by things such as 

accidents or complaints. 

How OSHA responds to complaints has changed over time. In the wake of 

the Kepone case, OSHA started to inspect virtually any complaint, which 

led to a backlog of complaint-driven inspections, according to interviewed 

officials. In its early response to the backlog, OSHA adopted a complaint 

process whereby each complaint was categorized based on whether or not 

it was written and signed by complainants. “Formal” complaints met both 

conditions, while “nonformal” complaints were oral or unsigned. OSHA 

further categorized complaints by the seriousness of the hazard alleged. 

Formal complaints were inspected regardless of whether the hazard 

alleged was serious, although offices were given longer time frames for 

responding to those that were other than serious. The agency generally 

handled nonformal complaints by sending the employer a letter.4

 Agency 

officials said that as a result of these distinctions, the agency was able to 

reduce some of its backlog. 

A new effort to reform the complaint procedures was made through the 

Complaint Process Improvement Project, which was part of the 

Department of Labor’s overall reinvention effort from 1994 to1996.5

 In 

January 1994, two area offices were selected as pilot sites to develop and 

test new procedures for handling complaints. Their work focused on an 

effort to (1) reduce the time needed for handling complaints, (2) speed the 

abatement of hazards, (3) allow OSHA to focus its inspections resources 

on workplaces where they were needed most, and (4) ensure consistency. 

The new procedures placed a greater emphasis on the seriousness of the 

alleged hazard as a factor for determining how the office would respond to 

a complaint. In addition, they introduced the use of telephones and fax 

machines as the means to notify employers of an alleged hazard instead of 

 3

29 U.S.C. § 657(f). 

4

Nonformal complaints classified as other than serious could also be investigated by 

telephone. 

5

The reinvention was part of Vice President Gore’s efforts to streamline government and 

better serve customers. 
Page 6 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

regular mail and provided specific procedures for following up with 

employers to make sure hazards were abated. These new policies were 

adopted and outlined in an OSHA directive dated June 1996. 

Policies regarding complaints are established by the Office of 

Enforcement Directorate in Washington, D.C.. Regional administrators in 

each of OSHA’s 10 regional offices oversee the enforcement of these 

policies within their own regions (see fig. 1). Each region is composed of 

area offices—there are 80 in total—each under an area director. The area 

directors oversee compliance officers—there can be as many as 16 in an 

office—some of whom play a supervisory role. Compliance officers play a 

key role in carrying out the directive. At almost all area offices, 

compliance officers take turns answering the phones, and taking and 

processing complaints, a collateral responsibility in addition to their duties 

in the field. 
Page 7 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Figure 1: OSHA’s 10 Regions 

Source: OSHA.

Alaska

Hawaii

Pa.

Ore.

Nev.

Idaho

Mont.

Wyo.

Utah

Ariz.

N.Mex.

Colo.

N.Dak.

S.Dak.

Nebr.

Tex.

Kans.

Okla.

Minn.

Iowa

Mo.

Ark.

La.

Ill.

Miss.

Ind.

Ky.

Tenn. 

Ala.

Fla.

Ga.

S.C.

N.C.

Va.

Ohio

N.H.

Mass.

R.I.

Conn.

Del.

Md.

D.C.

N.J.

Mich.

Calif.

Wash.

Wis.

N.Y.

Maine 

Vt.

W.Va.

American Samoa

Guam

U.S. 

Virgin 

Islands

Puerto 

Rico
Page 8 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

OSHA primarily responds to complaints based on the seriousness of the 

alleged hazard using a priority system that the agency credits with having 

improved its efficiency. However, its determinations can be affected by 

inadequate or inaccurate information. OSHA officials usually conduct an 

on-site inspection if an allegation is of a serious nature. Agency policy also 

requires on-site inspections in cases where a written and signed complaint 

from a current employee or their authorized representative provides 

reasonable grounds to believe that the employer is violating a safety or 

health standard. In general, OSHA officials conduct an inquiry by phone 

and fax—referred to as a phone/fax investigation—for complaints of a less 

serious nature. Many OSHA officials, especially compliance officers, told 

us this priority-driven system has been more effective in conserving their 

time and resources. Nevertheless, many of the compliance officers also 

said that some inspections may occur that are not necessarily warranted 

because complainants have inadequately or inaccurately characterized the 

nature of the hazard. On the other hand, almost everyone with whom we 

spoke said the agency prefers to err on the side of caution so as not to 

overlook a potential hazard. Many of the OSHA officials we interviewed, as 

well as officials from states that run their own safety and health programs, 

suggested approaches to improve the validity of the information 

accompanying the complaints. 

According to policy, OSHA initially evaluates all incoming complaints 

(whether received by fax, e-mail, phone, letter, or in person) to decide 

whether to conduct an on-site inspection or a phone/fax investigation (see 

fig. 2). OSHA conducts on-site inspections for alleged serious violations or 

hazards and makes phone/fax inquiries for allegations of a less serious 

nature. OSHA considers serious violations or hazards to be those that 

allege conditions that could result in death or serious physical harm. 

Specifically, OSHA initiates on-site inspections when the alleged 

conditions could result in permanent disabilities or illnesses that are 

chronic or irreversible, such as amputations, blindness, or third-degree 

burns. As seen in figure 2, though, OSHA will also go on-site when a 

current employee or his representative provides a written and signed 

complaint that provides reasonable grounds for believing that a violation 

of a specific safety and health standard exists. While immediate risks to 

any employee’s health or safety are the primary factors driving OSHA’s 

complaint inspections, additional criteria can also prompt an on-site 

inspection. For example, if an employer fails to provide an adequate 

Seriousness of 

Alleged Hazards 

Drives Complaint 

Response, although 

Erroneous 

Information Can 

Affect These 

Determinations 

OSHA Prioritizes Its 

Response to Complaints 

according to the Level of 

Hazard 
Page 9 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

response to a phone/fax investigation, OSHA’s policy is to follow up with 

an on-site inspection.6

Figure 2: Summary of OSHA’s Complaint Protocol 

a

Complaints are received by phone, fax, e-mail, in person or in writing. 

b

In addition, OSHA considers the criteria for an on-site inspection that are established in the 

Complaint Policies and Procedures Directive, CPL 2.115. 

Area office supervisors or compliance officers may call the complainant, if 

needed, to help understand the nature of the hazard. OSHA officials told 

us they might ask complainants to estimate the extent of exposure to the 

hazard and report how long the hazard has existed. If an area office 

supervisor decides that an on-site inspection will be conducted, OSHA’s 

policy is to limit the inspection to the specific complaint. A violation or 

another hazard that is in clear sight may be considered, but compliance 

officers cannot expand the scope of their inspection to look for other 

violations—a specification that underscores the importance of the 

complaint’s accuracy. 

 6

Other criteria that would prompt an on-site inspection are (1) the complaint identifies an 

establishment or an alleged hazard that OSHA has identified as a priority, (2) the company 

that is the subject of the complaint has a history of violations, (3) an employee alleges that 

he or she was discriminated against for complaining about or for refusing to do a 

dangerous job, or (4) if an inspection is scheduled or has begun at a worksite and another 

complaint is received that would normally be done by phone/fax is received. 

Source: GAO, based on OSHA’s Complaint Policies and Procedures Directive.

Incoming

complainta

Current employee or 

their representative’s

written and signed

complaint establishes

reasonable ground

that safety and

health standard is

being violated or

danger exists

High probability of

serious threat to worker

health or safetyb

OR

On-site inspection

No

Hazard eliminated

and/or 

complaint closed

Phone/fax

investigation

Employer

responds to 

OSHA

OSHA determines

response to 

be inadequate

or complainant 

disputes the

response

Yes

No

Yes
Page 10 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Phone/fax investigations, meanwhile, afford an opportunity to resolve a 

complaint without requiring a compliance officer to visit the worksite. 

Instead, the compliance officer contacts the employer by telephone and 

notifies him or her of the complaint and each allegation. The employer is 

also advised that he or she must investigate each allegation to determine 

whether the complaint is valid. The employer can resolve the complaint, 

without penalty, by providing OSHA with documentation such as invoices, 

sampling results, photos, or videotape to show that the hazard has been 

abated. Upon receiving documentation from the employer, the area office 

supervisor is required to review it and determine whether the response 

from the employer is adequate. 

For both on-site inspections and phone/fax investigations, OSHA’s policy 

is to keep the complainants informed of events by notifying them by letter 

that an on-site inspection has been scheduled, the outcome of either the 

inspection or the phone/fax investigation, and the employer’s response. In 

the case of a phone/fax investigation, the complainant has the right to 

dispute the employer’s response and request an on-site inspection if the 

hazard still exists. OSHA can also determine that the employer’s response 

is inadequate and follow with an on-site inspection. 

Of the 15 officials who told us they worked for OSHA prior to 1996, and 

whom we asked about past practices, nearly half said the agency’s current 

complaint policy has allowed them to better conserve their resources. For 

example, one 26-year veteran said phone/fax investigations have relieved 

his compliance officers of traveling to every complaint site for inspections 

that once averaged as many as 400 per year. Because the employer 

investigates the allegation first, the phone/fax inquiry is an efficient use of 

time, according to this supervisor. Of the 20 compliance officers that we 

asked about this topic, 18 said phone/fax investigations took less time to 

conduct than on-site inspections. Nearly one-half of these compliance 

officers told us the phone/fax investigation procedures reduced travel time 

or eliminated time spent writing inspection reports. The agency handled 

about two-thirds of all complaints it received in fiscal years 2000 through 

2002 through phone/fax investigations. 

Several OSHA officials we interviewed said OSHA’s phone/fax 

investigation procedures ease the burden on employers because the 

employers have an opportunity to resolve the problem. As a result, these 

officials told us that their interaction with employers has improved. While 

few of the employers we interviewed had the complaints against them 

resolved through phone/fax investigations, the three that did expressed 

Officials Credited the 

Option of Phone/Fax 

Investigations with 

Improving Efficiency 
Page 11 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

satisfaction with the way the allegation was handled. These employers 

reported that responding to phone/fax investigations required 3 hours, 

5 hours, and 2 to 3 days respectively. Only the employer reporting the 

greatest amount of time believed that the time he invested was 

inappropriate given the nature of the alleged hazard. 

A 1995 internal OSHA report, which reviewed the new complaint 

procedures implemented in two area offices as part of a pilot project, also 

credited phone/fax investigations with improving efficiency, specifically 

by reducing the time it took to notify employers of alleged hazards and to 

correct them, as well as with reducing the offices’ complaint backlog. The 

report found that using phone/fax investigations reduced notification time 

by at least a week, reduced the average number of days to correct hazards 

by almost a month in the two offices, and eliminated one office’s backlog 

and reduced the other’s backlog by almost half during its involvement in 

the pilot project. The report attributed these gains to compliance officers 

being able to phone and fax employers to inform them of the allegations 

instead of relying on mail, promptly contacting employers to clarify 

allegations and to offer feasible methods for correcting hazardous 

conditions, and more employees choosing to have their complaints 

resolved with phone/fax investigations. 

More than half of the 20 nonsupervisory compliance officers we 

interviewed told us that complainants’ limited knowledge of workplace 

hazards and their reasons for filing complaints can affect the quality of the 

information they provide, which, in turn, can affect OSHA’s determination 

of the hazard’s severity. They said complainants generally have a limited 

knowledge of OSHA’s health and safety standards or may not completely 

understand what constitutes a violation; consequently, they file complaints 

without knowing whether a violation exists. As a result, the level of hazard 

can be overstated. For example, one nonsupervisory compliance officer 

said he received a complaint that alleged a construction company was 

violating the standards for protecting workers from a potential fall, but 

found upon arriving at the site that the scaffolding in question was well 

within OSHA’s safety standard. Over half of the nonsupervisory 

compliance officers (13 of 20) said that there were “some or great” 

differences between what complainants allege and what is ultimately 

found during inspections or investigations, because complainants may not 

completely understand what constitutes an OSHA violation or they have a 

limited knowledge of OSHA’s standards. 

Erroneous Information 

Can Affect OSHA Hazard 

Assessments 
Page 12 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Complainants’ limited knowledge of OSHA’s health and safety standards 

can also result in compliance officers not knowing which potential 

hazards to look for when conducting on-site inspections. For example, one 

compliance officer noted that employees might complain about an 

insufficient number of toilets but not about machinery on the premises 

that could potentially cause serious injury. In addition, another 

compliance officer noted that many times complainants’ descriptions of 

hazards are too vague, a circumstance that prevents her from locating the 

equipment that was alleged in the complaint, such as a drill press, and 

OSHA’s rules preclude her from expanding the scope of the inspection in 

order to locate the hazard. 

The quality of the information complainants provide to OSHA can also be 

influenced by their motives for filing a complaint. For example, half (27 of 

52) of the area office directors and compliance officers we interviewed 

said they have received complaints from employees who filed them as 

retribution because they were recently terminated from their jobs or were 

angry with their employers. Although this practice was described as 

infrequent, OSHA officials said that in some instances complainants 

intentionally exaggerated the seriousness of the hazard or reported they 

were current employees when in fact they had been fired from their jobs. 

One official asserted that disgruntled ex-employees have taken advantage 

of OSHA’s complaint process to harass employers by having OSHA 

conduct an on-site inspection. Several of the employers we interviewed 

(4 of the 15) also claimed that disgruntled employees have used the 

complaint process to harass them. They expressed the view that OSHA 

should improve its procedures for evaluating the validity of complaints. 

Some of the compliance officers we interviewed said it is not unusual to 

experience an increase in the number of complaints during contract 

negotiations. One official told us that in a region where he once worked, 

union workers filed multiple complaints in order to gain leverage over the 

employer. A union official acknowledged that this occurred but noted that 

it was infrequent. Other OSHA officials told us that competitors of 

companies sometimes file complaints when they lose a competitive bid for 

a work contract. One official said that while company representatives do 

file complaints against each other to disrupt the other company’s work 

schedule, such tactics are not typical in his region. 

Despite these problems, several of the OSHA officials we interviewed said 

OSHA’s obligation is to evaluate whether there are reasonable grounds to 

believe that a violation or hazard exists, rather than trying to determine a 

complainant’s motives for filing the complaint. In fact, 34 of the 52 officials 
Page 13 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

we interviewed told us that almost all of the complaints they see warrant 

an inspection or an investigation, and as a result, many of the area offices 

inspect or investigate most of the complaints that are filed. One official 

said he would prefer to conduct an inspection or do a phone/fax 

investigation for an alleged hazard, rather than not address the complaint 

and have it result in a fatality. 

When asked during interviews about ways OSHA could improve its 

process for handling complaints, officials from OSHA and from states that 

run their own health and safety programs suggested approaches the 

agency could take to improve the information they receive from 

complainants. Although some offices were actively engaging in these 

practices, others reported that they were being used only to some or little 

extent. 

Their recommendations were of three types; the first was in regard to 

strategies for improving the validity of complaints that OSHA considers. 

Many OSHA area directors and compliance officers said the agency could 

warn complainants more explicitly of penalties for providing false 

information, which could be as much as $10,000 or imprisonment for as 

long as 6 months, or both.7

 This warning is printed as part of the 

instructions on the complaint form available on OSHA’s Web site. 

However, OSHA’s complaint policies and procedures directive states that 

area offices will not mail the form to complainants; consequently, 

complainants primarily receive the penalty warning only if they access the 

Web-based form.8

 In contrast, an official from one of the state programs 

reported that his state’s program requires complainants to sign a form with 

penalty information printed in bold above the signature line. According to 

the state official, this policy has reduced by half the number of invalid 

complaints. 

Several OSHA supervisors and directors expressed reservations about 

having compliance officers make verbal warnings to complainants about 

providing false information while taking their complaints, saying it could 

prevent some complainants who are already fearful from reporting 

hazards. Of the 52 OSHA officials we interviewed, 23 said the extent to 

 7

29 U.S.C. §666(g) 

8

In the absence of an OSHA complaint form, complaints can send their complaints to OSHA 

as a letter sent through the mail or via e-mail, or by phone, fax, or in person. 

State and Federal OSHA 

Officials Suggested a 

Number of Ways to Elicit 

Better Information from 

Complainants 
Page 14 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

which they remind complainants of the penalty for providing false 

information is “little or none at all.” Furthermore, several officials said 

complainants report hazards based on a perceived violation; therefore, 

they doubted a hazard that turned out to be invalid would result in a 

penalty. 

To further improve the validity of complaints, one official pointed to his 

state’s practice of generally conducting on-site inspections only for a 

current employee or an employee’s representative. According to the state 

health and safety official, this policy improves the validity of information 

because current employees can more accurately describe the hazard than 

an ex-employee who has been removed from the environment for some 

time and whose relationship with the employer may be strained. Another 

state’s health and safety official said her state has a policy that allows its 

managers to decline any complaint they determine is intended to willfully 

harass an employer, which also helps improve the reliability of complaints. 

According to this official, however, managers seldom find that a complaint 

was filed to willfully harass an employer. The state also has a policy that 

allows managers to dismiss any complaint they determine is without any 

reasonable basis. 

A second approach suggested by many OSHA officials was to improve 

complainants’ ability to describe hazards accurately. Of the 52 officials 

that we interviewed, 14 said OSHA could, for example, conduct more 

outreach to educate both employees and employers about OSHA’s health 

and safety standards. Although OSHA area offices already participate in 

outreach activities, such as conducting speeches at conferences or making 

presentations at worksites, several of the officials we interviewed said the 

agency could do more. For example, one compliance officer suggested 

developing public service announcements to describe potential hazards, 

such as trenches without escape ladders, and to provide local OSHA 

contact information for reporting such hazards. One official expressed the 

opinion that if OSHA were to conduct more outreach to employees, the 

quality of complaints would likely improve. Another compliance officer 

suggested that OSHA engage in more preconstruction meetings with 

employers to discuss OSHA’s regulations and requirements and share 

ideas for providing safer working environments. One interviewee said if 

employers were more knowledgeable about hazards, there would be less 

need for workers to file complaints. 

Finally, OSHA officials said the agency could take steps to improve the 

ability of employers and employees to resolve complaints among 

themselves before going to OSHA. Many of the officials that we 
Page 15 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

interviewed said their offices could encourage employers to form safety 

committees or other internal mechanisms to address safety concerns. Ten 

of the 52 officials we interviewed told us the extent to which their offices 

promote or encourage safety committees was “little to none at all.” Only 

some of these officials said that this lack of promotion stemmed from the 

requirements of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which some 

believe may prohibit or hinder the establishment of safety committees.9

OSHA’s policy for responding to complaints requires compliance officers 

to address complaints in a systematic and timely manner; however, we 

found practices used by area offices to respond to complaints varied 

considerably. While some of these practices involved departures from 

OSHA policy, others were practices that varied to such a degree that they 

could result in inconsistent treatment of complainants and employers. In 

particular, we found several instances where area offices departed from 

the directive by persuading complainants to choose either an on-site 

inspection or a phone/fax investigation, and by having nonsupervisory 

compliance officers evaluate complaints. We also found several instances 

where practices were inconsistent. Among the 42 offices we contacted, we 

found that some conducted follow-up inspections on a sample of closed 

investigation cases to verify employer compliance, and others did not. 

Since issuing its new directive for handling complaints in 1996, however, 

OSHA has issued no guidance to reinforce, clarify, or update those 

procedures. In addition, while OSHA requires its regional administrators to 

annually audit their area office operations, some administrators do not, 

and further, for those who do, OSHA does not have a mechanism in place 

to review the results and address problems on an agencywide level. 

In our interviews with 52 randomly selected supervisory and 

nonsupervisory officials in 42 of the 80 area offices, we found practices 

that appeared to depart from OSHA’s official policies. In particular, agency 

policy calls for supervisors to evaluate each complaint. However, 22 of the 

52 officials to whom we talked said nonsupervisory compliance officers in 

their offices are sometimes the decision makers for whether complaints 

are inspected or pursued through phone/fax investigations. In some of 

 9

Under the NLRA employers may not dominate committees that are considered “labor 

organizations.” See Electromation, Inc., 309 NLRB 990 (1992), enforced, 35 F.3d 1148 (7th 

Cir. 1994). 

Although Consistent 

Handling of 

Complaints Is a Key 

OSHA Principle, 

Practices in Some 

Area Offices Varied 

Some Practices and 

Procedures Departed from 

Agency Policies 
Page 16 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

these offices, compliance officers make the decision if the complaint is 

less than serious. In addition, some officials told us that if the case was 

earmarked for an inspection or was challenging, the supervisor would then 

review it. While OSHA’s directive addresses supervisory review within the 

context of inspections, an OSHA national director informed us that it is 

agency policy to have supervisors review each and every complaint. In 

addition, agency policy prescribes that compliance officers explain to 

complainants the relative advantages of both phone/fax investigations and 

inspections, if appropriate. However, 16 of the 52 officials to whom we 

spoke said they encourage complainants, in certain circumstances, to seek 

either an inspection or an investigation. For example, one official said that 

his office “sells” phone/fax investigations because they are faster to 

conduct and lead to quicker abatement than on-site inspections. However, 

an OSHA national director stressed to us that duty officers should not 

attempt to persuade complainants. Another practice that appeared 

inconsistent with policy was the treatment of written, signed complaints. 

Current employees and their representatives have the right to request an 

inspection by writing and signing a complaint, but before an inspection 

may take place, OSHA must determine that there are reasonable grounds 

for believing there is a violation of a safety or health standard or real 

danger exists. Area office supervisors are to exercise professional 

judgment in making this determination. Of the 52 officials with whom we 

spoke 33 said their offices exercise professional judgment by evaluating 

written and signed complaints. However, most of the remainder were 

about equally split in reporting that they evaluate these complaints 

“sometimes” (7 of 52) or forgo evaluation altogether and automatically 

conduct on-site inspections (8 of 52). 

Finally, while we found that complaint policy was generally followed at 

the three OSHA offices where we reviewed case files, we did find that one 

office had not been sending a letter to complainants to notify them of a 

scheduled inspection. According to the OSHA directive, complainants 

should be notified of inspections. 

During telephone interviews, officials described practices that, while they 

did not depart from agency policy, varied significantly from office to 

office. For example, offices differed in whether they treated e-mails as 

phone calls or as written and signed complaints. Of the 52 officials with 

whom we spoke, 12 said they treated complaints received via e-mail as 

written and signed complaints, while 34 said they treated them as phone 

complaints. While agency policy is silent on how to classify e-mail 

complaints, this inconsistency is important because written and signed 

Some Practices Varied 

Significantly among Area 

Offices 
Page 17 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

complaints are more likely to result in on-site inspections. Offices also 

differed in whether or not they performed random follow-up inspections 

for phone/fax investigations. While 10 of the 52 officials said they did not 

know if their offices conducted follow-up inspections, most of the 

remainder were about equally split in reporting that either they did (18 of 

52) or did not (20 of 52) do them. Although the directive does not require 

follow-up inspections, the OSHA letters sent to employers says they may 

be randomly selected for such inspections. This inconsistency in practice 

across offices is significant insofar as follow-up inspections can be seen 

either as an added burden to employers or as an important safeguard for 

ensuring abatement. We also found variation in how offices determined 

whether a complainant was a current employee. The employment status of 

a complainant is important, as it is often a factor in evaluating the 

complaint. Of the 52 OSHA officials with whom we spoke, 30 said their 

offices determine whether a complainant is a current employee simply by 

asking the complainant; 11 said they asked probing questions of the 

complainant, and 5 said they asked the complainant for some type of 

documentation, such as a pay stub. While the directive does not specify 

how compliance officers are to verify employment status, the methods 

used to obtain this information can affect its accuracy. 

Finally, we found that some area offices differ significantly in how they 

respond to complaints for which OSHA has no standard, specifically those 

involving substance abuse in the workplace.10 For example, during a site 

visit to one area office, an official explained that his office would not do a 

phone/fax investigation in response to complaints alleging drug use at a 

workplace, but would refer them to the police instead. However, another 

area office conducted a phone/fax investigation for a complaint about 

workers drinking alcoholic beverages while operating forklifts and 

mechanical equipment. An official in a third area office told us that his 

office has sometimes referred complaints about drug use at a workplace to 

the local police and at other times has responded to similar complaints 

with a phone/fax investigation. An OSHA national director told us that 

 10Even where there is no established standard, OSHA may determine that a hazard exists, 

under the Occupational Safety and Health Act’s general duty clause, and take enforcement 

action. The general duty clause refers to section 5(a)(1) of the Act, which generally 

requires employers to maintain workplaces that are free of recognized hazards that can 

result in death or serious injuries. See 29 U.S.C. §654(a)(1). So, for example, even though 

there is no standard for acceptable levels of mold in the workplace, a citation might be 

issued if an inspection determines that the presence of mold in a particular workplace 

constitutes a hazard in accordance with the statutory criteria. 
Page 18 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

area offices are obligated to do phone/fax investigations for alleged drug 

use in the workplace. 

OSHA policy requires that regional administrators annually audit their area 

offices and that audit results be passed on to the Assistant Secretary. 

However, this is not current practice. Regional administrators are required 

to focus the audits on programs, policies, and practices that have been 

identified as vulnerabilities, including the agency’s complaint-processing 

procedures. However, according to OSHA’s regional administrators, only 

5 of the agency’s 10 regions conduct these audits annually, while 3 conduct 

the audits, but only for a proportion of their area offices each year, and 

2 do not conduct the annual audits at all. In addition, according to one 

national director, all of the regional administrators are to submit the 

results of their audits to a Program Analyst in the Atlanta area office for 

review. The results of this review are to be reported to the Deputy 

Assistant Secretary for Enforcement, as well as to the responsible 

directorate, and they are responsible for addressing issues of 

noncompliance and determining what, if any, policy changes are needed. 

However, the Program Analyst in Atlanta said he does not receive all of 

the audits from each region as required, and an official from one of 

OSHA’s directorates told us his office does not receive such reports. 

The findings from the seven audits we reviewed underscore their value for 

monitoring consistency. These audits showed that most of the audited 

offices were (1) not correctly following procedures for meeting the time 

frames for initiating on-site inspections, (2) closing phone/fax 

investigation cases without obtaining adequate evidence that hazards had 

been corrected, and (3) not including all required documentation from the 

case files. 

To some extent, complaints have drawn OSHA compliance officers to sites 

with serious hazards. According to OSHA’s data for fiscal years 2000 and 

2001, compliance officers found serious violations at half the worksites 

inspected in response to complaints, a figure comparable to inspections 

conducted at worksites targeted for their high injury and illness rates. 

However, in one of our earlier reports, we expressed concern that for 

targeted inspections a 50 percent success rate may raise questions about 

whether inspection resources are being directed at sites with no serious 

Some Regional 

Administrators Meet 

OSHA’s Requirement to 

Annually Audit Area Office 

Operations, but OSHA 

Does Not Utilize Results 

Complaints Have, to 

Some Extent, Drawn 

OSHA to Serious 

Hazards at Worksites 
Page 19 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

hazards.11 Complaint-driven inspections shared other similarities with 

planned inspections; specifically, compliance officers cited similar 

standards during both types of inspections. On the other hand, complaint 

inspections often required more time to complete. Finally, we found a 

correlation between hazardous industries and complaints inspections. 

Specifically, those industries that, according to BLS data, had more 

injuries and illnesses also generally had a larger number of complaint 

inspections according to OSHA data. 

OSHA compliance officers found serious violations in half of the worksites 

they inspected when responding to complaints alleging serious hazards 

according to OSHA’s data for fiscal years 2000 and 2001 combined. These 

are hazards that pose a substantial probability of injury or death. During 

some planned inspections—those conducted at worksites targeted for 

their high injury and illness rates—OSHA compliance officers found 

serious violations, such as those involving respiratory protection and 

control of hazardous energy, in a similar percentage of worksites. 

Specifically, as shown in table 1, OSHA compliance officers found serious 

violations in 50 percent of the 17,478 worksites they inspected during 

complaint-driven inspections. Likewise, they found serious violations in 

46 percent of the 41,932 worksites they targeted during planned 

inspections. In a previous report we noted that this percentage might 

indicate that inspection resources are being directed to worksites without 

serious hazards. According to OSHA, many complaints come from the 

construction industry, where the work is often dangerous and of a short 

duration. As a result, even if an inspection begins immediately, “citable” 

circumstances may no longer exist, a fact that according to the agency, 

might explain why the number of serious violations that result from 

complaints is not higher. 

 11See GAO-03-45. 

From Fiscal Year 2000 to 

2001, Half the Worksites 

Inspected for Complaints 

Had Serious Violations 
Page 20 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Table 1: Number and Percentage of Inspected Worksites with Serious Violations, by 

Type, Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001 

Inspection type 

Number of inspections 

with serious violations

Number of 

inspectionsa

Percentage of 

inspections with 

serious violations

Complaints 8,699 17,478 50 

Planned 19,438 41,932 46 

Source: GAO analysis of data from OSHA’s IMIS, fiscal years 2000 and 2001. 

a

Numbers do not include other unprogrammed inspections, such as those OSHA conducted in 

response to worksite fatalities. 

We found that, in contrast to planned inspections, complaint-driven 

inspections require, on average, more hours per case to complete. 

Table 2 shows that OSHA compliance officers have required about 

65 percent more time for complaint-driven inspections in comparison to 

planned inspections—29.7 hours on average compared with 18.1 hours—

suggesting that while outcomes are similar, complaint-driven inspections 

are more labor intensive than planned inspections. Compared with 

planned inspections, complaint-driven inspections have a higher rate of 

health inspections, which, according to an OSHA national director, place 

extra time demands on compliance officers to obtain samples, test them, 

and document the results. In comparison with inspections, phone/fax 

investigations require, on average, far less time than either complaintdriven or planned inspections. 

Table 2: National Average for Hours per Inspection, by Type of Inspection or 

Investigation, Fiscal Years 2000 to 2002 

Response to complaint National average in hours 

All complaint-driven inspectionsa 29.7 

Phone/fax investigation only 1.4 

Planned inspection 18.1 

Source: GAO analysis of data from OSHA’s IMIS, fiscal years 2000 through 2002. 

a

These exclude other unprogrammed inspections, such as those OSHA conducted in response to 

worksite fatalities. 

In terms of the types of hazards they uncover, complaint-driven 

inspections shared some similarities with planned inspections that target 

the most hazardous sites. Of the 10 standards OSHA compliance officers 

cited most frequently for violations during complaint-driven inspections, 

7 were also among the 10 most frequently cited during planned 
Page 21 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

inspections. Table 3 shows the rank ordering of hazards cited most 

frequently during planned inspections and complaint-driven inspections. 

However, table 3 also shows that there were some differences in the 

frequency with which compliance officers cited particular hazards during 

planned inspections, compared with complaint-driven inspections. For 

example, the standard most frequently cited during planned inspections, 

general requirements for scaffolds, is the 18th most frequently cited 

standard during complaint-driven inspections. Likewise, the standard cited 

with the second highest frequency in planned inspections, “fall 

protection,” is not within the 10 standards most frequently cited for 

complaint-driven inspections. Such examples indicate that some 

differences exist in the type of hazards compliance officers found at 

worksites about which workers have complained and at those OSHA 

targeted for inspection. 

Table 3: Most Frequently Cited OSHA Standards for Complaint-Driven and Planned 

Inspections, Fiscal Years 2000 to 2002 

OSHA standard 

Planned 

inspections 

Complaint 

inspections

Rank Rank

General requirements for scaffolds 1 18

Fall protection 2 25

Hazard communication 3 1

Control of hazardous energy 4 3

Wiring methods, components, and equipment for general use 5 4

Respiratory protection 6 2

General requirements, for all machines 7 7

Electrical, general requirements 8 8

Mechanical power transmission apparatus 9 11

Bloodborne pathogens 10 10

Powered industrial trucks 17 5

Personal protective equipment, general requirements 26 6

Portable fire extinguishers 31 9

Source: GAO’s analysis of IMIS data, fiscal years 2000 through 2002. 

Our analysis found a correlation between injuries and illnesses reported in 

industries and the rate at which complaints were inspected. As shown in 

figure 3, industries associated with higher rates of injuries and illnesses 

also tended to have a higher rate of complaint inspections than did 

industries with lower injury and illness rates, according to OSHA’s data. 

Hazardous Industries Had 

a Preponderance of 

Complaints in Calendar 

Year 2001 
Page 22 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Figure 3: Correlation between an Industry’s Injury and Illness Rate and Its 

Complaint Inspection Rate, Calendar Year 2001 

Note: To correct for factors that could influence the relationship between complaint inspections and 

injuries and illness, we used rates instead of numbers. 

For example, one industry, transportation equipment, had 12.6 injuries and 

illnesses per 100 full-time workers in 2001 and had a relatively high rate of 

complaint inspections, .016 per 100 full-time workers. Conversely, the 

motion picture industry, which had only 2.5 injuries and illnesses per 

100 full-time workers in 2001, had a relatively low incidence rate for 

complaint inspections, .0015 complaint inspections per 100 full-time 

workers. 

For a handful of industries the pattern of high injury and illness rates 

associated with high complaint inspection rates did not apply. For these 

industries, the number of complaint inspections per 100 full-time workers 

was either far higher or far lower than might have been expected given the 

number of injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers. For example, 

the air transport industry had the highest injury and illness rate for 

2001, but its complaint inspection rate was lower than those for all but 

1 of the 10 industries with the highest injury and illness rates. In another 

example, while the general building contractors industry had the highest 

complaint inspection rate of any industry, over a third of all industries had 

higher injury and illness rates. Table 4 shows industries that were highest 

Source: GAO’s analysis of BLS and IMIS data.

Injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers

Complaint inspections per 100 full-time workers

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

0

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.005

0.015

0.025

0.035

0.045

0.05
Page 23 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

or lowest in terms of injuries and illness and their corresponding rates of 

complaint inspections. 

Table 4: Ten Industries with Highest Rates and Ten Industries with Lowest Rates of 

Injuries and Illnesses and Corresponding Rate of Complaint Inspections, Calendar 

Year 2001 

Injuries and 

illnesses per 100 

full-time workers 

Complaint 

inspections per 100 

full-time workers

Industries with highest injury/illness rates

Transportation by aira 13.3 0.0073

Transportation equipmenta 12.6 0.0160

Fabricated metal products 11.1 0.0383

Furniture and fixtures 11.0 0.0210

Food and kindred products 10.9 0.0157

Primary metal industries 10.7 0.0283

Lumber and wood products 10.6 0.0262

Stone, clay, and glass products 10.1 0.0280

Local and interurban passenger transit 9.8 0.0110

Agricultural production-livestock 9.2 0.0061

Industries with lowest injury/illness rates 

Business services 2.7 0.0038

Motion pictures 2.5 0.0015

Insurance carriers 1.7 0.0006

Engineering and management services 1.6 0.0017

Depository institutions 1.4 0.0007

Holding and other investment offices 1.4 0.0004

Nondepository institutions 1.0 0.0006

Insurance agents, brokers, and service 0.8 0.0011

Legal services 0.8 0.0005

Security and commodity brokers 0.5 0.0006

Source: GAO analysis of BLS and OSHA’s IMIS data for 2001. 

a

OSHA stated that it does not pursue many of the complaints in these areas because its jurisdiction is limited. 

Since 1975, OSHA has had to balance two competing demands: the need to 

use its inspection resources efficiently and the need to respond to 

complaints about alleged hazards that could seriously threaten workers’ 

safety and health. In light of this ongoing challenge, OSHA has adopted 

complaint procedures that, according to agency officials, have helped 

Conclusion 
Page 24 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

OSHA conserve its resources and promptly inspect complaints about 

serious hazards. Nonetheless, in deciding which complaints to inspect, 

OSHA officials must depend on information provided by complainants 

whose motives and knowledge of hazards vary. Many OSHA officials do 

not see the quality of this information as a serious problem. However, 

considering that serious violations were found in only half of the 

workplaces OSHA officials inspected when responding to complaints, it 

seems likely that the agency, employers, and workers could all be better 

served if OSHA improved the quality of information it receives from 

complainants. 

When OSHA conducts inspections of complaints based on incomplete or 

erroneous information, it potentially depletes inspection resources that 

could have been used to inspect or investigate other worksites. In 

addition, employers may be forced to expend resources proving that their 

worksites are safe when no hazard exists. OSHA should certainly not 

discourage workers from making complaints or pursuing a request for an 

OSHA inspection. Indeed, the correlation we found between those 

industries designated as hazardous and those that generate complaints 

inspections suggests that using complaints to locate hazardous worksites 

is a reasonable strategy for the agency to pursue. However, to the extent 

that OSHA officials could glean more accurate information from 

complainants, such as by deterring disgruntled employees from 

misrepresenting hazards or their employment status, the agency could 

benefit in several ways. With better information, OSHA could better 

conserve its inspection resources, minimize the burden on employers, and 

further enhance the agency’s credibility in the eyes of employers. In 

addition, if the strategies described by OSHA officials as effective means 

to improve the quality of complaints are not being fully utilized, OSHA may 

miss opportunities to maximize the efficiency its complaint process might 

afford. 

Some variation in how OSHA officials respond to complaints is inevitable, 

particularly considering that there are 80 area offices with as many as 

16 compliance officers in each office. Nevertheless, the inconsistencies 

that we found have ramifications when considering the size of the agency 

and the judgment that comes into play when handling complaints. 

Moreover, OSHA has much to gain by upholding a reputation for fairness 

among employers. When employers buy into OSHA’s standards and 

comply voluntarily, the agency can better use its 1,200 compliance officers 

to ensure worker safety at the more than 7 million worksites nationwide. 

However, OSHA’s credibility could be damaged by procedural 

inconsistencies if, for example, they resulted in different treatment and 
Page 25 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

disposition of similar complaints. While OSHA requires regional audits for 

monitoring consistency, the failure to maximize the value of this 

information limits the agency’s ability to ensure one of the underlying 

principles of its complaint policy. 

We are making recommendations that the Secretary of Labor direct the 

Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health to instruct area 

offices to pursue practices to improve the quality of information they 

receive from complainants, such as 

• reminding complainants of the penalties for providing false 

information, 

• conducting outreach to employees regarding hazards, and 

• encouraging employers to have safety committees that could initially 

address complaints. 

We are also recommending that the Secretary direct the Assistant 

Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health to take steps to ensure that 

area offices are consistently implementing the agency’s policies and 

procedures for handling complaints. As a first step, the agency should 

update and revise the 1996 directive. 

In revising the directive, the agency should update and clarify 

• who evaluates complaints, 

• how complainants are advised of the process, 

• how written and signed complaints are evaluated, 

• how to verify the employment status of complainants, 

• how to treat e-mail complaints, and 

• how to address complaints involving hazards for which the agency has 

no specific standard. 

In addition, we are recommending that the Secretary direct the Assistant 

Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health to 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 
Page 26 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

• develop a system for ensuring the regions complete audits and 

• develop a system for using the audit results to improve consistency of 

the complaint process. 

We received comments on a draft of this report from Labor. These 

comments are reproduced in appendix II. Labor also provided technical 

clarifications, which we incorporated where appropriate. 

Although Labor recognized in its comments that most complaints are 

anonymous and unsigned—a fact that makes it difficult to find employees 

to obtain their views about the complaint process—the agency 

recommended that we acknowledge in the report the limited number of 

employees we interviewed. At the beginning of the report and again at the 

end, we acknowledged that we interviewed 6 employees. Further, Labor 

questioned whether the number of employees we interviewed was an 

adequate number on which to base the conclusions reached in this report. 

Our conclusions about OSHA’s complaint process were not based solely 

on employee interviews but were based on a variety of data, including 

interviews with 52 OSHA officials. In determining which OSHA officials to 

interview, we deliberately included area directors, assistant area directors, 

and compliance officers, which resulted in us obtaining information from 

officials at various levels in 42 of OSHA’s 80 area offices. 

Labor also noted that our findings from OSHA’s database which showed 

that only half of complaint inspections result in citations for serious 

violations do not recognize that many complaints come from the 

construction industry, where the work is often dangerous and of a short 

duration so that even if an inspection begins immediately, “citable” 

circumstances may no longer exist. We added language to the body of the 

report to reflect this information. 

In responding to our first recommendation about improving the quality of 

information received through complaints, Labor stated that OSHA has 

taken many steps, both in its online and office-based complaint-taking 

procedures, to provide guidance to employees to ensure that all 

complaints are valid and accurate. We maintain, however, that OSHA can 

do more to improve the validity and accuracy of the complaints it receives. 

Labor did not comment on our recommendations that OSHA develop a 

system for ensuring that the regions complete audits of the complaint 

process and for using the results of these audits to improve the 

consistency of the process. 

Agency Comments 
Page 27 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

We will make copies of this report available upon request. In addition, the 

report will be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or any of your staff has any questions about this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-7215 or Revae Moran, Assistant Director, at 

(202) 512-3863. 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert E. Robertson, Director 

Education, Workforce, and 

 Income Security Issues 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 28 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Our criteria for selecting our site visits were geographical diversity and 

volume of complaints. We received data from the Occupational Safety and 

Health Administration (OSHA) regarding the number of complaints each 

of its area offices processed in 2000, 2001 and 2002. On the basis of these 

data, we selected the three sites with the largest number of complaints 

processed in their respective regions and which roughly approximated the 

east, south and western regions. Those sites were Pittsburgh, 

Pennsylvania; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado. In each of these 

offices, we examined a statistical sample of case files. We used a standard 

set of questions, pretested on case files in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

office, to conduct the case file reviews. In addition, we interviewed 

compliance officers—both supervisory and nonsupervisory. We randomly 

selected 38 cases in Denver, 30 cases in Austin, and 34 cases in Pittsburgh 

from the available list of complaint files processed by these offices in 

2000, 2001, and 2002. Austin and Pittsburgh had disposed of their case files 

for phone/fax investigations for 2000, according to area directors there, 

who said this was allowed by agency rules for how long files must be kept. 

As a result, our random selections for Austin and Pittsburgh were selected 

from lists that did not include phone/fax investigations for 2000. 

In addition to our site visits, using standard sets of questions, we 

interviewed by telephone randomly selected area directors, assistant area 

directors, and compliance officers in 42 area offices. We obtained from 

OSHA a list of area directors, assistant area directors (who are supervisory 

compliance officers), compliance officers, and regional administrators. We 

randomly selected 20 of the agency’s 80 area directors and 32 of its 

1,200 compliance officers (12 assistant area directors and 20 

nonsupervisory compliance officers). We also interviewed officials in all 

10 regional offices. Additionally, we conducted telephone interviews with 

health and safety officials from 13 states that operate health and safety 

programs apart from OSHA. We selected these 13 states, in part, based on 

discussions with OSHA. 

In addition to OSHA officials, we also interviewed employers whose 

worksites were the subject of a complaint and employees who had filed 

complaints. OSHA provided us with a database of all employers who in 

2000, 2001, or 2002 had worksites that were the subject of complaints and 

employees who had filed complaints in the same year. From the database 

we randomly selected 90 employers and 90 employees. We took steps to 

make sure that employers’ and employees’ contact information was kept 

separate from their identity and any information collected from them 

during their interviews. We also obtained a guarantee of confidentiality 

from the report’s requester. Of the 90 employers randomly selected, we 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 29 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

succeeded in interviewing 15. Of the 90 employees, we succeeded in 

interviewing 6. Some of the employee complaints randomly selected had 

been filed anonymously, so contact information was not available. In most 

cases, those selected could not be reached. 

Finally, we examined data for fiscal years 2000 through 2002 related to 

complaints in OSHA’s Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) 

and looked at data on injuries and illnesses collected and published by the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for calendar year 2001 as they related to 

complaints.1

 In addition, for the IMIS data we obtained and reviewed 

documentation of internal controls and manually tested the data. We 

interviewed both OSHA and BLS officials to establish the reliability of the 

data. We found the data to be reliable for our purposes. 

 1

These data are collected for the calendar year. 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Labor 

Page 30 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Labor 

See comment 3. 

See comment 2. 

See comment 1. 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Labor 

Page 31 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

See comment 5. 

See comment 4. 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Labor 

Page 32 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Labor 

Page 33 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

The following are GAO comments on Labor’s letter dated May 21, 2004. 

1. We rephrased our recommendations to reflect Labor’s 

administrative procedures. 

2. Our conclusions are based on site visits to 3 area offices 

processing large numbers of complaints, reviews of case files 

in those offices, interviews with 52 OSHA officials—area 

directors, assistant area directors, and compliance officers—

who represented 42 of OSHA’s 80 area offices, interviews with 

officials in all 10 of OSHA’s regional offices, interviews with the 

director of the Office of Enforcement, interviews with officials 

in 13 states that have their own safety and health programs, 

analysis of data on complaints from OSHA’s Integrated 

Management Information System, analysis of BLS data on 

injuries and illnesses, interviews with 15 employees whose 

companies were the subject of complaints, interviews with 6 

employees who filed complaints, and the review of agency 

documents related to the complaint process. 

In the appendix on scope and methodology, we corrected the 

number of employee interviews, changing it to 6 from 8. 

3. We have included the agency’s explanation in the final version 

of the report. 

4. We added a note to table 4 acknowledging that OSHA’s 

jurisdiction is limited in the transportation area and corrected 

the source of the data in the table. 

5. On the basis of our interviews with OSHA officials who said the 

agency could do more to improve the quality of information 

received from complainants, we continue to believe that 

adopting our recommendation would help the agency better 

manage its inspection resources. Moreover, we believe that the 

agency could take such actions without discouraging 

employees from filing legitimate complaints. 

GAO Comments 
Appendix III: Staff Acknowledgments 

Page 34 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Carl Barden, Sue Bernstein, Karen Brown, Amy Buck, Patrick di Battista, 

Barbara Hills, Mikki Holmes, Cathy Hurley, Julian Klazkin, Jim Lawrence, 

Luann Moy, Corinna Nicolaou, Sid Schwartz, and Michelle Zapata made 

key contributions to this report. 

Appendix III: Staff Acknowledgments 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 
Related GAO Products 

Page 35 GAO-04-658 OSHA's Complaint Response Policies 

Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA's Voluntary Compliance Strategies 

Show Promising Results, but Should Be Fully Evaluated Before They Are 

Expanded. GAO-04-378 March 19, 2004. 

Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA Can Strengthen Enforcement 

through Improved Program Management. GAO-03-45 November 22, 2002. 

Worker Protection: Labor's Efforts to Enforce Protections for Day 

Laborers Could Benefit from Better Data and Guidance. GAO-02-925 

September 26, 2002. 

Workplace Safety and Health: OSHA Should Strengthen the Management 

of Its Consultation Program. GAO-02-60 October 12, 2001. 

Worker Protection: OSHA Inspections at Establishments Experiencing 

Labor Unrest. HEHS-00-144 August 31, 2000. 

Occupational Safety and Health: Federal Agencies Identified as 

Promoting Workplace Safety and Health. HEHS-00-45R January 31, 2000.

Related GAO Products 

(130278) 
The General Accounting Office, the audit, evaluation and investigative arm of 

Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities 

and to help improve the performance and accountability of the federal 

government for the American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; 

evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, 

recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make informed 

oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO’s commitment to good government 

is reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and reliability. 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no cost is 

through the Internet. GAO’s Web site (www.gao.gov) contains abstracts and fulltext files of current reports and testimony and an expanding archive of older 

products. The Web site features a search engine to help you locate documents 

using key words and phrases. You can print these documents in their entirety, 

including charts and other graphics. 

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly released reports, testimony, and 

correspondence. GAO posts this list, known as “Today’s Reports,” on its Web site 

daily. The list contains links to the full-text document files. To have GAO e-mail 

this list to you every afternoon, go to www.gao.gov and select “Subscribe to e-mail 

alerts” under the “Order GAO Products” heading. 

The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2 each. A 

check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent of Documents. 

GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or more copies mailed to a 

single address are discounted 25 percent. Orders should be sent to: 

U.S. General Accounting Office 

441 G Street NW, Room LM 

Washington, D.C. 20548 

To order by Phone: Voice: (202) 512-6000 

TDD: (202) 512-2537 

Fax: (202) 512-6061 

Contact: 

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm 

E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov

Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470 

Jeff Nelligan, Managing Director, NelliganJ@gao.gov (202) 512-4800 

U.S. General Accounting Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7149 

Washington, D.C. 20548 

GAO’s Mission 

Obtaining Copies of 

GAO Reports and 

Testimony 

Order by Mail or Phone 

To Report Fraud, 

Waste, and Abuse in 

Federal Programs 

Public Affairs