Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (https://kycir.org/tag/fatal-flaws/)
Mike and Pam Oakley have been talking for years about how Kentucky’s worker safety agency failed their 17-year-old son. State officials never listened. They’re listening now.
The commissioner acknowledged that agency culture, a lack of accountability and staffing shortages had often led to shortcomings when investigating deaths on the job.
One candidate has made improving worker safety a talking point in his campaign for governor.
The merger proposal was presented as one possible antidote to the Labor Cabinet’s recent troubles.
House Bill 322 would restore the OSHA Standards Board and require it to meet more frequently.
Cabinet leaders said eliminating the Labor Cabinet would save money, streamline government and improve the functions of Kentucky’s Occupational Safety and Health agency, which has been under federal scrutiny since a critical audit released in August.
The Labor Cabinet has purchased equipment and raised salaries in its embattled worker safety program. The Cabinet hasn’t specified how much the raises would be.
Kentucky pays its entry-level safety compliance officers less than any of the surrounding states, according to a KyCIR review of salary data.
The acting Labor Secretary wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in the Lexington newspaper that the “hard work of turning the program around is well underway.”
Gov. Matt Bevin ignored a series of questions from a reporter about worker safety and spoke instead about a tech company’s new location.