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Cal/OSHA another failed state agency

July 27, 2025

The California State Auditor’s latest review of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, pointed to many serious shortcomings. As is typical, state officials blame staffing shortages — but the real issue is far more fundamental. California loves to create and expand new agencies to solve various problems, but bureaucracy rarely is the best solution.

California has a voluminous legal code dealing with workplace safety. CalOSHA is charged with enforcing those laws and, by its self-description, “protects workers from safety hazards.” That usually involves conducting inspections after an employer reports an accident or after the agency receives a complaint. That sounds reasonable enough, but according to the audit the agency often doesn’t provide on-site inspections — it usually sends a letter to employers instead.

The audit “questioned Cal/OSHA’s rationale for deciding not to inspect complaints in nine of the 30 cases we reviewed.”

Even when the agency went on site, the audit found “critical weaknesses.”

It reported that enforcement personnel didn’t include sufficient documentation. And this one is no surprise for anyone who has dealt with state agencies: “Cal/OSHA took weeks or even months to initiate some inspections of complaints and accidents.”

The agency only conducted such workplace investigations in 17% of the complaints it deemed valid. In a response to a CalMatters inquiry, the lawmaker who instigated the audit, Assembly Labor Committee Chair Liz Ortega, D-Hayward, asked: “What’s the point?” Indeed, what is the point of having an agency that does little more than create a false sense of safety?

We’re certainly not calling for Cal/OSHA to send swarms of enforcement agents to micromanage private businesses. But the audit is a reminder that state agencies rarely live up to their highfalutin promises. When they fail, their go-to solution is to call for bigger budgets.

In our view, state bureaucracies should focus less on enforcing volumes of picayune labor rules and more on inspecting accidents, fatalities and genuinely dangerous situations. The Legislature needs to force Cal/OSHA to rethink its priorities, but — typical of bureaucracies again — it’s unlikely that anything will change in the future.

Orange County Register

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Cal/OSHA another failed state agency

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