§659 Enforcement Procedures

Summary

After an inspection or investigation, the Secretary must mail the employer a certified notice of any citation and the penalty the Secretary plans to assess. The employer has fifteen working days from receipt to tell the Secretary it wants to contest the citation or penalty. If the employer does not contest and no employee or employee representative files a timely notice, the citation and penalty become a final order of the Commission and cannot be reviewed by any court or agency. If the Secretary thinks the employer did not fix a violation in the allowed time, the Secretary will mail a certified notice of that failure and the proposed penalty, and the employer again has fifteen working days to contest. If the employer contests, or an employee or representative files a timely complaint saying the time to fix the violation is unreasonable, the Secretary must tell the Commission right away and the Commission must hold a hearing. After the hearing, the Commission will issue an order that may confirm, change, cancel the citation or penalty, or give other relief. That order becomes final thirty days after it is issued. If an employer shows it tried in good faith to correct a problem but could not finish because of things beyond its control, the Secretary can, after a hearing, change the required correction. Employees or their representatives may take part as parties in these hearings.