GAO: OSHA Can Do More to Prevent Overexertion in Warehousing and Delivery Sectors

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) offers five recommendations for OSHA to prevent overexertion among workers in the general warehouse and “last mile” delivery sectors. The report notes that injuries have risen among these workers along with the increase in e-commerce retail sales, citing data from 2021 and 2022 that shows overexertion as the most common hazard in the transportation and warehousing sector, which includes general warehousing and last mile delivery. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, transportation and warehousing had the highest serious illness and injury rate among all sectors in 2022, with an estimated 3.8 cases per 100,000 workers.

Because OSHA lacks an ergonomics standard, the agency must rely on the general duty clause to cite ergonomics hazards. One challenge presented by this approach, according to OSHA, is that building a case for general duty clause citations is resource intensive. OSHA issued an ergonomics standard in November 2000, but it was repealed by a joint resolution of Congress in March 2001.

The recommendations in the GAO report are to add a column for musculoskeletal injuries to OSHA recordkeeping forms, increase training for compliance officers on how to identify and assess ergonomics hazards, clarify existing ergonomics guidance for compliance officers and employers, follow up in a timely manner with employers notified of ergonomics hazards at their facilities, and evaluate the performance of OSHA’s national emphasis program for warehouses and distribution centers.

In its response to GAO, OSHA stated that a notice of proposed rulemaking to add a column for musculoskeletal injuries to recordkeeping forms was published in 2010 but that finalizing the rule would require the agency to divert resources from higher-priority actions such as its standards for heat exposure, infectious diseases, and emergency preparedness and response. OSHA also disagreed that industry-specific guidance is needed for warehousing workers and delivery drivers.

The GAO report, which includes OSHA’s response, is available on the GAO website.