Sacramento, CA — Legislation recently introduced in California would shift the responsibility for investigating workplace deaths and incidents involving permanent disability – which currently belongs to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health – to state prosecutors.
Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro) introduced A.B. 2321 after a state audit published in July uncovered “deficiencies in Cal/OSHA’s enforcement processes and staffing levels that may undermine some of California’s workplace protections.” The audit involved a review of 60 case files that Cal/OSHA oversaw from fiscal years 2019-2020 through 2023-2024.
Specifically, auditors determined that Cal/OSHA “did not demonstrate that it had sufficient reasons for closing some workplace complaints and accidents without conducting an onsite inspection.”
The auditors also said they observed “some critical weaknesses” among the onsite inspections that Cal/OSHA did conduct. They added that the agency’s process deficiencies and staffing shortages are “root causes for many of the concerns we identified.”
During an Assembly hearing last year, Ortega said she was going to introduce the legislation because “I don’t want this hearing, this audit, to just be about the problems. We need to come up with solutions. Every worker should have the right to go home at the end of the day.”
The bill is before the State Assembly Appropriations Committee.
