Employers should confirm their safety, injury reporting and other policies meet current Occupational Health and Safety Administration (the “Agency ”) recently amplified its “OSHA Cares” initiative.

While not a new regulation, the OSHA Cares initiative reinforces employer duties under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq. (“OSHA”).

OSHA Cares Initiative

Agency communications emphasize the agency’s role in helping employers ensure workers go home safely each day. See OSHA QuickTakes (Feb. 2026). The initiative’s promotion of compliance with required OSHA workplace postings and compliance assistance resources reflects the agency’s continued commitment to OSHA enforcement in keeping with campaign promises made by President Trump to protect worker safety. .

“OSHA Cares” reflects OSHA’s emphasis on prevention and proactive compliance. The initiative does not create new legal obligations but reinforces compliance expectations under the General Duty Clause, 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1), requiring employers to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards. Although framed as supportive, the initiative signals continued enforcement focus. OSHA may rely on the General Duty Clause and existing standards to cite employers that fail to address recognized hazards.

Noncompliance with either the General Duty Clause requirement to make the workplace safe or more specific workplace safety standards can trigger substantial employer liability. While penalty ranges are adjusted annually for inflation, projected ranges for 2026 include:

• Serious / Other: up to ~$16,000 per violation
• Willful / Repeat: up to ~$160,000 per violation
• Failure to abate: daily penalties

Key Compliance Areas

Employers should assess and strengthen compliance in the key compliance areas of the initiative:

• Workplace Poster Requirement: Employers must display the OSHA Job Safety and Health poster. See 29 C.F.R. § 1903.2.
• Worker Participation: OSHA emphasizes employee involvement in safety programs. See OSHA Recommended Practices (2016).
• Compliance Assistance Programs: OSHA promotes use of cooperative programs such as the On-Site Consultation Program and VPP.
• Hazard Prevention: OSHA continues to focus on well-known preventable hazards such as falls and trenching.

Recommended Employer Actions

In response to the initiative, all employers immediately should:

• Verify poster compliance and review safety policies.
• Conduct documented hazard assessments and update training documentation.
• Implement a Safety and Health Management System and consider OSHA consultation programs.
• Document efforts to meet specific applicable standards as well as demonstrate efforts to comply with the general duty clause.
• Document good-faith efforts to mitigate enforcement risk that demonstrate the employer’s efforts to identify and
  correct hazards by specified deadlines and
  provide certification of abatement as necessary.
• Establish and consistently administer documented safety compliance.
• Establish strict documented safety compliance reporting, investigation and response policies and practices.
• Require immediate worker and management reporting of safety threats and injuries.
• Establish and administer meticulous, documented process for investigation of accidents and injuries that provides both for timely redress of risks and injuries and reporting to the agency and worker’s compensation with appropriate legal support and pre planned use of attorney-client privilege and other evidentiary and risk mitigation tools.
• Prohibit and take appropriate steps to prevent retaliation.
• Create and maintain carefully crafted documentation.

If you have questions about this or other health care concerns, contact the author. 

For More Information

We hope this update is helpful. For more information about the  or other health or other employee benefits, human resources, or health care developments, please contact the author Cynthia Marcotte Stamer via e-mail or via telephone at (214) 452 -8297.

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About the Author

A Fellow in the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and Board Certified in Labor and Employment Law by the Texas Board of Legal Certification, Cynthia Marcotte Stamer has more than 35 years experience, advising plan sponsors, fiduciaries, service providers and others about fiduciary responsibility and other employee benefit plan design, administration, risk management and compliance. i

Ms. Stamer is a Martindale-Hubble AV-Preeminent (highest/top 1%) practicing attorney recognized as a “Top Woman Lawyer,” “Top Rated Lawyer,” and “LEGAL LEADER™” in Health Care Law and Labor and Employment Law; among the “Best Lawyers In Dallas” in “Labor & Employment,” “Tax: ERISA & Employee Benefits,” “Health Care” and “Business and Commercial Law recognized for her experience, scholarship, thought leadership and advocacy on health and other employee benefits, insurance, healthcare, workforce, HIPAA and other data and technology and other compliance in connection with her work with health care and life sciences, employee benefits, insurance, education, technology and other highly regulated and performance-dependent clients.

Ms. Stamer has more than 35 plus years of experience advising and representing, employers, employee benefit plans and their fiduciaries and administrators, their administrative services, technology and other business associates and other vendors, managed care and insurance, health care and other clients about these and other workforce, employee benefits, internal controls and other operations and compliance concerns.  

Ms. Stamer is nationally sought out for her decades of leading-edge experience in the design, sponsorship, administration, and defense of health, severance, savings retirement and other employee benefit, workforce, insurance, healthcare, data and technology, and other operations to promote legal and operational compliance, reduce regulatory and other liability, and advance other operational goals. This experience includes decades of work on ERISA, Internal Revenue Code and other related labor and employment, insurance, corporate and securities, data privacy and security, licensing and other laws. She also sought out for her extensive speaking and publications on these and related concerns.

Along with her decades of legal and strategic consulting experience, Ms. Stamer also contributes her leadership and experience to many professional, civic and community organizations including current or previous service as Employee Benefits Group Chair and a Substantive Groups Committee Member for the ABA Real Property Trusts and Estates (“RPTE”) Section and Chair of its Welfare Plan, Fiduciary Responsibility and Plan Terminations Committees; Chair of the ABA International Section International Employment Law Committee; Chair and Vice Chair of the ABA Tort Trial and Insurance (“TIPS”) Section Medicine and Law Committee, Vice Chair of its Employee Benefits and Worker’s Compensation Committees; and Chair of the ABA Intellectual Property Section Law Practice Management and Special Technologies Committees; ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (“JCEB”) Council Representative and Scribe for its annual agency meetings with the Department of Health and Human Services; International Section Life Sciences Committee Chair; Health Law Section Managed Care & Insurance Interest Group Chair; Vice Chair, Tax Section Fringe Benefit Committee Chair, and in various other ABA leadership capacities. Ms. Stamer also is a former Southwest Benefits Association Board Member and Continuing Education Chair, SHRM National Consultant Board Chair and Region IV Chair, Dallas Bar Association Employee Benefits Committee Chair, former Texas Association of Business State, Regional and Dallas Chapter Chair, a founding board member and Past President of the Alliance for Healthcare Excellence, as well as in the leadership of many other professional, civic and community organizations. She also is valued and celebrated for her decades of policy advocacy and charitable, pro bono, community and other service and leadership to promote understanding and strengthening health care, workforce, saving, disability, aging and retirement and other key policies and challenges through her PROJECT COPE Coalition For Patient Empowerment initiative and many other pro bono service involvements locally, nationally and internationally.

Ms. Stamer is the author of many highly regarded works published by leading professional and business publishers, the ABA, the American Health Lawyers Association, and others. Ms. Stamer also often speaks and serves on the faculty and steering committee for many ABA and other professional and industry conferences and conducts leadership and industry training for a wide range of organizations.

For more information about Ms. Stamer or her health industry, health and other benefits, workforce and other experience and involvements, see the Cynthia Marcotte Stamer P.C. website or contact Ms. Stamer via telephone at (214) 452-8297 or via e-mail here.

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