Yesterday, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a memorandum for OSHA officials and their state counterparts explaining how the agency will exercise enforcement discretion with respect to certain OSHA standards that require annual or recurring audits, reviews, training, or assessments. According to the memo, during the course of an inspection, agency officials will evaluate whether the employer made good faith efforts to comply and, where compliance is not possible, ensure that employees were not exposed to hazards from tasks, processes, or equipment for which they were not properly trained.

The memo further details factors the agency will consider in determining whether it will issue a citation and how OSHA will take steps to ensure corrective actions have been taken once normal operations resume.