President Trump was sworn in a second term of January 20, and spent the rest of that day establishing a record of executive actions more than day 1.

Among those executive actions on day 1 (and one pair of others that followed later in their first week in the White House), was a series of executive and directive orders aimed at personnel, budget and regulations, which are designed to drastically reduce the regulation and application of the law. Agencies, like Osha.

These executive actions, including a freezing of contracting, budget cuts, mandates back to the office, purchases and reclassification of professional positions in political appointments, have a systematic strategy to reduce regulatory agencies.

This effort to reduce OSHA and other executive agencies should not surprise anyone. The dismantling of the administrative state was a declared objective of the first Trump administration and again of the campaign this time, and that was a campaign promise that President Trump offered in the last step. At the end of Trump’s first administration, the Federal OSHA had been reduced to the least number of compliance officers in the agency’s history (falling from 952 compliance officers at the beginning of the Trump administration in 2016 to 761 in January 2020 ), and the agency had had a record number of vacancies in “medium management” positions throughout the area and regional field offices.

The Biden administration focused on rebuilding the ranks in Osha. Biden had an deputy undersecretary of Osha who swore only a couple of hours after day 1, and then dedicated the next four years to hire more than one hundred new compliance officers and fill vacancies through the agency. At the end of 2023, the Biden administration had built the number of inspectors of OSHA back to 878.

As of day 1 of the second administration of Trump, writing has been on the wall for Osha that it is about to experience another important contraction. A smaller OSHA means less resources to perform inspections (OSHA made thousands of less inspections during the first Trump administration than during Obama or Biden administrations), participates in a solid application (the total number of appointments and significant actions of application decreased During the first Trump administration. We predict similar effects on Osha’s work during this term.

Here is a breakdown of the key executive actions of day 1 and week 1 that are designed to weaken federal agencies such as OSHA:

Back to work in person ”Executive Order

What are you doing -A of the executive orders of the President of President 1 of President Trump ordered that all federal agencies make immediate arrangements to end practically all remote work policies, and require federal employees to return to work schedules in full -time person .

Impact on Osha -For many federal employees, a return to a workstation in assigned person is unfeasible. After remote work prevailed during the pandemic, many people adjusted their lives, including relocation in different cities, so a return to work in person in a particular federal workplace is not possible. The net effect, and the planned effect, many federal employees will leave their work and leave federal employment, a purge of the Federal Work Force.

“Make fork

What are you doing – Headed by Elon Musk, all federal agencies have issued a memorandum that offers federal employees the option to give a renunciation notice before February 6, which would essentially result in eight months of compensation; that is, without job expectations or requisites to return to the office. By decreasing quasi-compra, federal employees remain under strict expectations (for example, return to work in person) without job security guarantee.

Impact on Osha -With even less veiled intentions than the return to the work mandate in person, this initiative will accelerate the purge of the Federal Work Force. Together with the perspective of a return to full -time work, and other expected changes to make federal employment less desirable, it is likely that the perspective of an eight -month paid vacation is in a fairly significant exodus of federal agencies, including the OSHA.

RECLASSIFY THOUSANDS OF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES FROM THE CAREER TO THE POLITICAL ROLES (“RESTORE RESPONSIBILITY TO THE POSITIONS OF POLICIES INSIDE THE EXECUTIVE ORDER OF THE WORK FORCE”):

What does: The vast majority of federal employees are public career officials who enjoy job security under a series of civil service laws. That means that they are not employed at will and a president cannot be easily finished. The balance of the federal workforce are “political” works, appointed by the president, which serves at the pleasure of the president; That is, the president can eliminate them for any reason or without reason. During his first term, President Trump signed an executive order to try to reclassify tens of thousands of those career functioning works as political positions, to more easily end the people that President Trump does not believe that he aligns with his political agenda . The effort stagnated in the face of legal challenges during his first mandate, and now he is trying again. The American Federation of Government Employees (ANGE), which represents thousands of federal works, said in a statement: “The order of President Trump is a flagrant attempt to corrupt the federal government by eliminating the rights of due process of employees for employees for employees for that can be fired for political reasons.

Impact on Osha: While the other executive actions that President Trump issued struggled to encourage federal employees to leave their jobs, this action intends to facilitate that President Trump delivers to the employees of the agency selected, and perhaps replace Some of them with political allies. This will serve to reduce the agency and increase political influence on OSHA operations and application decisions.

Executive Order: “Establish and implement the Efficiency Department of the President’s Government” (Doge)

What are you doing: Represents the government efficiency department with authority to propose significant reductions to government programs. Doge is not technically a government department or agency. It is more an advisory board, directed by Elon Musk, with the objective of mass cuts to federal expenditure ($ 500b- $ 2T is the declared objective) and “mass reductions in mass in the federal bureaucracy.” President Trump said that “Lege will pave the way for my administration to dismantle the government bureaucracy, cut the excess of regulations, reduce the waste and restructive expense to federal agencies.”

Impact on Osha: Recommendations that leave dogs will undoubtedly include budget cuts in OSHA, which will probably climb subsidies programs, such as the Susan Harwood, subsidies to support training initiatives, and also to the execution and regulation capacities of the ischiotibial of the ischiotibial of OSHA. As with all the executive actions discussed above, the budget cuts caused by DEGE will also have the effect of reducing the workforce in Osha.

Federal Executive Order “Freezing Hiring”

What are you doing: Another of the executive orders of President Trump’s day that suspends the hiring of essentially all federal agencies, except for the military.

Impact on Osha: With a significant decrease in the expected federal employment due to the so -called “purchase”, the return to the work mandate in person, the expected endings and the budget cuts, there will be significant vacancies and shortages in the ranks of Osha, and with a hiring Federal freezing in layers at the top, we can expect those vacancies to remain vacancies; That is, the agency will shrink and remain smaller than its operations demand. That will necessarily mean less inspections, less appointments, reduced or slower regulation activities, and in general, greater difficulties in carrying out the security mission in the agency’s workplace.

Review pending regulatory freezing ”Executive Order

What are you doing: This executive order suspends the implementation of new federal regulations until those named of the Trump administration are implemented to review and approve them (or withdraw them). The EO also orders the agencies to withdraw the rules to which they have been sent, but that have not yet been published in the Federal Registry, and postpones the validity date of the published rules that have not yet entered into force.

Impact on Osha: This EO immediately stops the continuous regulation efforts of OSHA, including updates of standards and new protections. This includes the standard of heat disease prevention that moved to the period of notification and comfort, and the emergency response rule.

Just out of the door, the Trump administration is taking bold executive measures to systematically dismantle federal agencies, and Osha is right in the middle of that. Although Osha struggled to rebuild her ranks of the cuts of the first Trump administration, through a multiple workforce reductions, regulatory reversals and budgetary limitations, the administration is preparing the scenario to trigger a significant contraction of the Application of the application and regulation capacity of OSHA on the capacity of regulation over the coming months.

Topics Workers compensation