The couple were high-school sweethearts, married for 23 years, but on February 2nd, everything changed.
The company was eligible for such a discount – which ADOSH refers to as an “adjustment” factor – because Arlington Cattle Company was a small business with 15 employees.An ABC15 investigation found ADOSH routinely gives companies with fewer than 250 employees a reduction on their fines, under a federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration policy designed to minimize the financial impact on small businesses.
“And I think that that message is, you know, if we get in trouble, if we're a small company, then ADOSH is going to discount this fine that we receive,” he said.We reviewed three years’ worth of ADOSH records and found these types of discounts are routinely given to small companies. Both federal and state worker-safety programs must consider company size when assessing fines, said Jordan Barab, a former deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.
ADOSH declined to sit down for an interview with ABC15 about the discounted fines. In a statement, officials said there are factors, such as company size, that are “used to calculate the penalty amount” and are “not a reduction.” ADOSH said those guidelines are laid out in the federal OSHA Field Operations Manual.We obtained public meeting minutes from 2016 where an ADOSH assistant director explained fine reductions aren’t given on safety violations that caused or contributed to the fatality.