OSHA Restructures Regional Operations

The U.S. Department of Labor has announced strategic changes to its Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) regional operations.

According to a DOL press release, the changes include the creation of a new OSHA regional office in Birmingham, Alabama. The new office will oversee operations in Alabama, as well as those in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, along with portions of the Florida panhandle. The new office addresses the region’s growing worker population and the hazardous work done by those in food processing, construction, heavy manufacturing, and chemical processing.

As part of its strategic restructuring, OSHA will also merge its Regions 9 and 10 into a new San Francisco Region to improve operations and reduce operating costs. The agency will also rename its regions to associate them by geography, rather than its current practice of assigning numbers to regions. A complete list of the new regional designations can be found here.

“The changes reflect the nation’s demographic and industrial changes since the passage of the OSH Act and will allow our professionals to better respond to the needs of all workers, including those historically underserved,” said Doug Parker, OSHA assistant secretary. “With a stronger enforcement presence in the South and more consolidated state oversight and whistleblower presence in the West—an area dominated by states that operate their OSHA programs—we can direct our resources where they’re needed most.”