WASHINGTON — While businesses bemoan the cost of regulations, a new study suggests that government enforcement of workplace health and safety rules can save lives without sapping a company’s bottom line.
The findings come from a decade-long look at hundreds of California work sites subject to random safety inspections. Researchers found that inspected companies reduced their injury claims by 9.4 percent compared to those not inspected, with no negative impact on profits or sales.
Better yet, the same companies saved an average of 26 percent on workers’ compensation costs in the four years following an inspection when compared with similar firms that were not randomly inspected.
The study, published online Thursday in the journal Science, challenges business groups’ complaints about “job-killing regulations.”
Critics of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration have argued that the agency should spend fewer resources on inspections and focus instead on voluntary safety programs.
“These inspections ironically appear to be creating value for the firms that they are visiting in terms of reduced workers’ comp costs and frequency of injuries,” said Michael Toffel, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of the study.
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