California has had egregious and enterprise-wide workplace safety violations on the books since 2021. It still doesn’t have rules telling inspectors how to cite them. Cal/OSHA has now proposed those rules, and for a contractor running crews on several California jobs, the math is the part that matters: egregious penalties would be counted per exposed worker, and enterprise-wide penalties per covered worksite.
The Department of Industrial Relations posted the rulemaking package in mid-October. Written comments are due Nov. 30, and a public hearing is set for Dec. 3 in Oakland, with a Zoom option. The proposal amends Title 8 sections 332.4, 334, 335, 336 and 340.4 to carry out Labor Code sections 6317 and 6317.8, which Senate Bill 606 added in 2021.
What makes a Cal/OSHA violation egregious
An egregious violation starts as a willful one. It becomes egregious if at least one more condition is true within the five years before the citation. The employer has a final history of one or more repeat, willful or egregious violations, five or more serious ones, or 10 or more general or regulatory ones. It intentionally disregarded its duties, for example by not keeping an operative injury and illness prevention program. Its conduct, taken as a whole, shows clear bad faith. Or the violation, or earlier ones, led to a death, a catastrophe (three or more workers hospitalized), five or more injuries or illnesses, or the employer carries an experience modifier above 125%.
That last test is new territory. An EMR is an insurance number, and contractors already know a 1.25 can cost them bids. Under the proposal it could also help turn a willful citation into an egregious one.
Once a violation is egregious, Cal/OSHA issues a separate citation and penalty for each employee exposed. The draft’s own example: 10 exposed workers, 10 penalties. Willful penalties in the draft run from $11,632 to $162,851 each. An egregious citation stays in effect for five years after it becomes final.
Enterprise-wide citations and multiple jobsites
The enterprise-wide piece is the one most general contractors should read twice. A violation is presumed enterprise-wide if the employer has workers at more than one worksite and either has a written policy that applies to multiple sites and breaks a standard, or shows a pattern of the same violation at more than one site. The employer can try to rebut it.
If it sticks, the proposed penalty is multiplied by the number of worksites covered, up to $162,851. Only a classification that applies at every site counts in the math, and the draft presumes medium severity and extent and moderate likelihood unless the investigation shows otherwise. Fail to abate at some sites and a separate daily penalty, capped at $15,000, runs for each site that missed the deadline. A written policy that conflicts with a new emergency regulation gets a 30-day grace period after the Standards Board vote.
The draft also defines “establishment” for construction as each location where employees report or work, assessed enterprise-wide when the citation is enterprise-wide. It stretches the penalty-history lookback from three years to five to match the repeat rule, and it moves the abatement-declaration deadline to 10 working days. The department estimates statewide compliance costs at $0, on the logic that only violators pay.
What contractors should check before the Dec. 3 hearing
The written-policy trigger is the real exposure. A company-wide fall protection, trenching or heat procedure that falls short of Title 8 isn’t one violation anymore. It’s one per jobsite. This comes on top of AB 2321’s criminal referral changes starting Jan. 1. Firms with California operations should have their safety manuals read against Title 8 now, while comments are still open.