Increase in fines in Wyoming stirs workplace safety debate

CASPER – When her grandson died in 2012 construction accident, Mary Jane Collins began pushing state lawmakers to do more to prevent job-related fatalities.

Regulators fined the company that employed her 20-year-old grandson, Brett, but the firm negotiated the penalties to half of what the Wyoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration had proposed.

Those fines were based on the federal penalties for serious safety violations. Set in 1990, they hadn’t been adjusted until last year, when Congress hiked the maximum fines 78 percent to adjust for inflation. State lawmakers adopted that increase earlier this year. It goes into effect in February.

Wyoming is perpetually ranked as one of the worst states for workplace safety. And while some hope the increase in fines will address that poor record, others contend the state’s small population and high-risk industries are to blame. Incentives, not penalties, will increase the state’s health and safety record, they maintain.

Read more: http://www.wyomingnews.com/news/increase-in-fines-in-wyoming-stirs-workplace-safety-debate/article_b6ba032a-6dac-11e6-a8d2-0b7ab2973b09.html