Where is OSHA?

I never realized that, unless the government issues a special enforcement initiative, OSHA can inspect a workplace only if a worker complains. However, under the Trump administration, these initiatives no longer exist. After almost three years there has been no permanent administrator. Further, almost half of OSHA’s senior executive positions are now empty and filled with “acting” staff, temporarily leading offices on short-term bases. Thus, OSHA currently has fewer inspectors than at any time in the agency’s almost 50-year history, and it has conducted a near-record low number of inspections. At its current staffing level, it would take the agency 65 years to visit every workplace in the country just once

Many of the workers in dangerous jobs are immigrants, unlikely to ever call OSHA because they fear firing — or worse. This means the agency currently has almost no ability to focus inspections on the workshops where workers are being overexposed.