If the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is taking a closer look at a particular workplace hazard, there’s a good reason. Enforcement by the federal agency generally stem from upward trends in recordable or reportable injuries on particular hazards and high-hazard industries, experts say.
Kate St. Aubin, an MSC industrial safety consultant, has direct experience with this, having worked for OSHA at the state level for 10 years, in enforcement and later in consultation. “I can commiserate with our customers’ safety departments and know exactly how hard it is to be everything for everyone and try to fix things,” she says.
On the vast safety spectrum with compliance box-checking companies at one end and exemplary voluntary protection program participants at the other, enforcement aims to strike a middle ground.
Gil Truesdale, president and chief revenue officer of Martin Technical, remarks at how many of the latest enforcement updates are designed to help employers take baby steps toward a healthy safety culture. “It gives you a little bit more of a focus and an attainable goal,” he says.
Here’s a look at five OSHA enforcement areas to be aware of.
1. Renewed Emphasis on Amputations
Amputations are among the most disabling of worker injuries, and consequently they have been an area of emphasis in workplace safety for years. The extension of OSHA’s national emphasis program (NEP) on amputations in manufacturing industries is an indication that these kinds of hazards remain an issue.
NEPs direct OSHA to focus resources, including inspections, toward employers in certain industries as determined by the North American Industry Classification System, or NAICS.
“Under the renewed program … OSHA will conduct inspections of manufacturing facilities to ensure compliance with safety practices while operating, servicing, or maintaining machines,” the agency explains in a news release. “This includes controlling dangerous energy sources and making sure machines are properly guarded to prevent amputations.”
St. Aubin points out that the renewed program overlaps familiar regulations such as lockout/tagout and machine guarding.
Read more: OSHA vs. ANSI: How to Up Your Safety Compliance Game
2. Chemical Labeling Standardization
OSHA’s hazard communication standard has been aligned to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals, or GHS, to ensure that the U.S. is consistent with other countries regarding the information on chemicals, including safety data sheets (SDSs).
Hazard communication violations usually rank on OSHA’s top 10 list each year. In 2024 and 2025, they were No. 2 behind fall protection.
Truesdale attributes this to the sheer number of safety data sheets that employers must keep track of. In the last 10 years, “it’s gone from 60,000 or 70,000 to probably 750,000 chemicals,” he says.
“As you use chemicals within the manufacturing process, you have to label those, contain those and store those, and you have to do it in an appropriate manner with OSHA and EPA,” he explains, “and the hazcom labeling has become an issue.”
Employers who use online SDS management tools have their chemical records automatically updated the moment the product is purchased, Truesdale says.
3. Renewed Heat-Related Illness Program
This year, OSHA extended its national emphasis program on heat safety, and the agency also proposed its first-ever rule on the topic, which is going through a comment period as part of the rulemaking process.
“The heat-related illness program has grown, rightfully so,” St. Aubin says. Notably, OSHA inspectors will determine whether the employer has a heat illness and injury program in place.
“It can be very simplistic: a short, written program saying that you’re going to allow for work-rest ratios, hydration and monitoring temperatures,” she says. “And training to it is a big piece—helping people to see it in others or in themselves, what the signs and symptoms are.”
Besides those controls, employers can provide cooling PPE and keep spaces cool via air conditioning or other methods.
Read more: OSHA’s Top 10 Violations 2024: Fall Protection Still No. 1
4. Fall Protection Training
In September, OSHA released its preliminary report of the most-cited safety violations in 2025, and fall protection topped the list for the 15th straight year. Fall protection training was No. 6.
Although there are no recent federal changes to fall protection standards, “the enforcement around fall protection training has been a large focus, because recordable injuries continue to happen,” says Jethro Roemer, national sales training manager for fall protection at 3M. “OSHA highlights training requirements in 1910.30 and 1926.503.”
“Every single company that has fall protection going on at their facilities, they need to have a competent person on-site. That’s stated by OSHA,” he says. “Employees need to have training every single year, and it has to be documented.”
5. Higher Penalties for Violations
OSHA increased the maximum penalty for other-than-serious violations to $16,550 per violation (up from $16,131) and the maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations to $165,514 per violation (up from $161,323).
The 2.5 percent increase is a “catch-up adjustment” designed to account for annual inflation. Still, it represents a bigger financial blow to any company facing a violation.
Rather than take chances with employee safety or loss to business continuity and hope to avoid a penalty, St. Aubin recommends that companies address root causes and invest in safety measures up front.
“Make a piggy bank of an assumed long-term cost due to injury or downtime and use that money proactively on the front end to start doing those things,” she says. “And call your MSC industrial safety consultant and talk about what initiatives you want to have mitigated in year 2025, 2026. We love having those conversations.”
