The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says it will target companies with severe or repeated safety violations for extra inspections and possible court action.
'This policy will focus on the high-gravity violators and will put more tenacity and teeth into our enforcement practices,' said OSHA Administrator John Henshaw.
The agency will conduct followup investigations of any employer who has received a 'high gravity' citation, reserved for the most severe violations, or who has had repeated serious violations or a fatality.
OSHA will also track all worksites operated by the same company or its corporate partners. The Labor Department said the change in emphasis grew out of a series of stories in the New York Times about McWane Inc., an Alabama manufacturer that accumulated more than 400 violations and nine deaths at its plants around the country since 1995.
