The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced an expanded national initiative to pursue criminal charges in cases involving worker endangerment. Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates directed all 93 United States Attorneys' Offices to participate in this effort. Previously DOJ gave new authority to the DOJ Environmental Crimes Section (ECS) to prosecute worker safety cases, and ECS and the US Department of Labor (DOL) have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to share information, make criminal case referrals and jointly investigate such cases. As a result, employers should assume that information regarding workplace safety investigations by OSHA will be looked at by federal prosecutors. The initiative is based on the belief that companies that have worker safety violations may also have violated environmental statutes, and thus could face the far more stringent criminal sanctions under the environmental laws.
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