Gutting Health & Safety Protections: Gavin Newson Following Trump’s Lead

Gutting Health & Safety Protections: Gavin Newson Following Trump’s Lead

Garrett Brown
DONALD TRUMP’s ATTACKS on worker health and safety protections are notorious, but less well known is that Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in California has mimicked Trump in likewise understaffing and underfunding Cal/OSHA, the state’s worker safety agency.

Trump has allowed the number of field compliance inspectors for federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to dwindle to levels not seen in decades. Trump’s appointees have issued policy directives that undermine key worker protections at both OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

The standard-setting process at federal OSHA has ground to a halt. The key worker safety research organization, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), was slated for 90% elimination and remains on life support in terms of both staff and funding.

Despite Governor Newsom’s very public efforts to be seen as Trump’s main Democratic Party opponent, Newsom’s policies toward Cal/OSHA in staffing, funding, and performance mirror Trump’s assault on worker rights.

Cal/OSHA Inspector Vacancies

The latest available data on Cal/OSHA vacancies show 102 vacant inspector positions for a vacancy rate of 35.5% among the 287 fully-funded compliance safety and health compliance officer (CSHO) positions. Newsom allowed the inspector vacancy rate to climb from 12% when he took office in January 2019 to a peak of 46% in August 2024.

As has been the case for years now, seven enforcement District Offices currently have CSHO vacancy rates at or above 50%. These offices are: Fremont (70%), Long Beach (70%), Santa Barbara (67%), San Bernardino (62%), Bakersfield (57%), San Francisco (50%), Riverside (50%), and the Santa Ana PSM Non-Refinery (50%). In addition, the Oakland District Office has 45% CSHO vacancies, the Monrovia District Office has 40% vacancies.

California only has one field inspector for every 101,000 workers — much less protective than the inspector-to-worker ratios in Oregon (1:23,000) and Washington state (1:32,000).

The latest available data indicate that 27 CSHOs are “bilingual.” Nine of the 14 members of the Agriculture Safety enforcement unit are bilingual.

Cal/OSHA regions in Northern California, the Central Valley and the Central Coast have large numbers of farmworkers, yet these two regions have but one bilingual inspector each. It is estimated that at least 5 million of the state’s 19 million worker labor force speak languages other than English, with many monolingual in their native tongue.

There are only two industrial hygienists among the 185 filled District Office CSHO positions, which means that enforcement inspections involving health issues — such as heat, infectious diseases, wildfire smoke, airborne lead and silica exposures, noise, and ergonomics — are severely limited by lack of qualified personnel.

California currently is the epicenter of an occupational health crisis among mostly Latino immigrant workers in the artificial stone industry. There are more than 631 cases of silicosis, an incurable, fatal disease caused by exposure to silica dust during stone cutting and shaping operations, with more than 74 undergoing lung transplants. More than 35 workers have died.

More Cuts for Enforcement

Cal/OSHA is financed by a completely independent fund which receives no state tax revenues. That fund has run surpluses between $130 million and $200 million over the last several fiscal years. The Occupational Safety and Health Fund is financed by a very small surcharge on the worker compensation premiums paid by employers.

Additional but smaller funding for Cal/OSHA comes from federal OSHA grants and fee-for-service equipment inspections — all totally separate from state tax revenue. Despite the surpluses in the OSH Fund, Newsom has tried to cut Cal/OSHA’s enforcement budget in each of the last three years:

• Newsom proposed a $1.7 million cut in the state fiscal year 2024-25;

• Newsom proposed a $21 million cut in 2025-26; and

• Newsom proposed a $727,000 cut to the compliance budget and another $335,000 cut for protections for workers in the state’s 13 oil refineries and the workers in more than 1,000 workplaces using highly hazardous chemicals.
The Democratic super-majority Legislature has not gone along with Newsom’s proposed cuts, increasing Cal/OSHA’s enforcement budget in 2024-25 and 2026-27, and reducing the budget cut in 2025-26 by $5 million to a net reduction of $16 million.

There is no fiscal reason requiring these budget cutbacks proposed by Newsom that have weakened Cal/OSHA’s ability to protect the 19 million workers in the state.

What the Data Reveals

In July 2025, the California State Auditor issued its report on Cal/OSHA’s performance over a five-year period ending in June 2024. For the last year of the study, from July 2023 to June 2024, in response to worker complaints and employer reports of serious injuries and fatalities, it revealed:

• 82% of validated complaints were responded to with a letter investigation

• 17% of validated complaints had an on-site inspection

• 42% of employer accident reports were responded to with an on-site inspection

• 58% of employer accident reports (including injuries) were responded to with a letter investigation

A “letter investigation” is simply a letter sent by Cal/OSHA to the employer asking them to self-inspect, and to report back any workplace hazards identified by the employer and any corrective action taken. No actual on-site inspection by Cal/OSHA occurs.

The data reveals that a worker filing a complaint had less than one in five chance that it would result in an on-site inspection by Cal/OSHA compliance safety and health officers. Even with employer-reported serious injuries and deaths, on-site inspections occurred less than half the time.

Deficiencies in Cal/OSHA’s field response have continued after the audit period. In 2025, Cal/OSHA reported that more than half (57%) of all Cal/OSHA responses to worker complaints, accident reports, planned inspections and referrals consisted of letter investigations. In the first quarter of 2026, on-site inspections made up less than half (47%) of Cal/OSHA responses.

The current less-than-50% level of on-site inspections by Cal/OSHA contrasts sharply with the practice of the worker protection agency over the last 30 years, as reflected by information from the same data base. In 2010, actual on-site inspections occurred 69% of the time; in 2000, on-site inspections constituted 72% of Cal/OSHA’s responses; and in 1995 on-site inspections made up 75% of Cal/OSHA regulatory work.

When Corrective Actions Are Mandated

Cal/OSHA data for the first nine months of 2025 showed that the number of on-site inspections increased 5% over the previous year, but the number of citations for unsafe conditions and violations of state law plummeted in 2025.
Comparing the first three quarters of 2025 to the same period in 2024:

• Agriculture citations were down 14%;

• Construction citations were down 25%

• Waste management citations were down 28%

• Manufacturing citations were down 37%

• Transportation and warehousing citations were down 50%

• Health care and social assistance citations were down 53%

The full-year 2025 statistics, released in June 2026, indicate improvement in the number of citations issued in some industrial sectors. But several key sectors experienced continuing declines for the full year:

• Manufacturing inspections were up 4% over 2024, but citations issued were down 6%;

• Health care and social assistance had a 36% increase in inspections, but an 8% decline in violations cited;

• Retail trade inspections were up 23%, but citations issued were down by 6%; and

• Accommodation and food services saw a 1% increase in inspections, but a 16% drop in violations cited.

This latest available performance data confirm that even when inspections are conducted, the number of citations issued to correct unsafe and unhealthy conditions have dropped dramatically.

The years-long CSHO vacancies have generated tremendous pressure on District Managers and CSHOs themselves to “open and close, open and close, open and close” as many perfunctory inspections as possible to keep up with the steady incoming flow of worker complaints and employer accident reports. Inspections without mandated corrective actions mean there is no accountability for unsafe conditions and little deterrence for employers taking advantage of Cal/OSHA’s weakness.

Cal/OSHA Response to All Types of Enforcement Activity
including worker complaints, employer accident reports,
programmed inspections, referrals and follow-up inspections

Time Period Total Activity On-Site Inspections Letter Investigations
CY 2025 17,064 7,415 / 43% 9,669 / 57%
CY 2024 15,822 6,375 / 40% 9,447 / 60%
CY 2023 15,548 6,820 / 44% 8,728 / 56%

CY 2010 12,316 8,463 / 69% 3,853 / 51%
CY 2005 12,593 8,176 / 65% 4,417 / 35%
CY 2000 13,002 9,298 / 72% 3,704 / 28%
CY 1995 13,358 10,076 / 75% 3,282 / 25%
Sources: Data from the Federal OSHA OIS System of DOSH activity entered into the Federal database by Cal/OSHA District Offices, generated on May 8, 2026. The historical data was generated from the same Federal data base on July 13, 2022.

Predictable Results

While the political postures of Trump and Newsom may appear at odds, their policies toward worker health and safety protections have been similar and have produced the entirely predictable results. Regulatory agencies designed to protect the health, safety and rights of working people have been crippled by understaffing and underfunding, unable to meet either their mission or legal mandates.

The common denominator of Trump’s and Newsom’s policies is corporate funding for their political careers and ambitions. Like other corporate Democrats, Newsom depends on the largesse of industries covered by Cal/OSHA for his political campaigns and future.

The understaffing and underfunding of Cal/OSHA is designed to show Newsom’s current and future corporate campaign contributors that they have nothing to fear from him. He has demonstrated that he is willing to throw worker health and safety under the bus with the best of them, including Trump.

The people who pay the cost for these corporate-friendly policies in injuries, illnesses, and deaths on the job are the 19 million workers in California.

September-October 2026, ATC 244