By Casey M. Cosentino and Eric J. Conn
OSHA recently renewed a Local Emphasis Enforcement Program (“LEP”) that targets hotel operators in OSHA’s Region 2, which includes New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The directive outlining OSHA’s Hotel LEP is available on OSHA’s website.
The Hotel LEP was launched in October 2010, and during the first year of the initiative, OSHA limited enforcement inspections to hotels in the Virgin Islands. According to an OSHA Region 2 official, the agency started in the Virgin Islands because of a high number of reports of workplace injuries at hotels in that area. Since the start of the LEP, OSHA has essentially inspected a different hotel property each month to month and a half. The hotel properties subject to LEP inspections have ranged from locally-owned motels to multinational hotel chains.