Safety and Health complaints
| Submitted | Dec. 6, 2018 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Paul Gottinger
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:
A copy of all safety and health complaints received by Occupational Safety and Health Administration between June 1, 2018 and December 6, 2018.
I am a career journalist with work that has appeared at The Daily Beast among other publications. I am willing to pay any reasonable expenses associated with this request, however, as the purpose of the requested disclosure is in full conformity with the statutory requirements for a waiver of fees, I formally request such a waiver.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Paul Gottinger
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Good morning Mr. Gottinger,
OSHA received two letters from you dated December 6, 2018, requesting:
All reports of severe injury or death received by Occupational safety and Health Administration between June 1, 2018 and December 6, 2018; and
A copy of all safety and health complaints received by occupational Safety and Health Administration between June 1; 2018 and December 6, 2018.
You also requested a fee waiver.
OSHA does not consider your letters to be perfected FOIA requests. The Department of Labor's FOIA implementing regulations at 29 CFR 70.19 state:
(c) Description of records sought. Requesters must describe the record or records sought in sufficient detail to enable Department personnel to locate them with a reasonable amount of effort. To the extent possible, the request should provide enough identifying information to help the component identify the requested records, such as the subject of the record, the date or approximate date when the record was created, the record's title or name, case or file number, reference number, the person or office or the office location that created it, and any other pertinent identifying details. Prior to submitting the request, a requester may wish to consult the references provided in § 70.1 of this part, the relevant FOIA Requester Service Center or the FOIA Public Liaison to discuss the records they are seeking and to receive assistance on how to describe the records.
(d) Deficient descriptions and revised requests. If the description is insufficient, so that a knowledgeable employee who is familiar with the subject area of the request cannot identify the record with a reasonable amount of effort, the component processing the request will notify the requester and describe what additional information is needed to process the request.
We are estimating that you are requesting OSHA to locate approximately 4800 files for your request on sever injury or death reports and approximately 30,000 files for safety and health complaints received during the time period you specified. Thus, you have not described records that can be located with a "reasonable amount of effort."
For requests of great breath we may be able to pull data from OSHA's inspection severs if you can specify, for example, specific companies or NAICS codes of interest to you. I would be happy to work with you regarding your requests and ask that you contact me. If needed a conference call between you and one or more of OSHA's subject matter experts can be arranged to help focus your requests.
At this time OSHA is not making a determination regarding your request for a fee waiver. We note that the burden for demonstrating a fee waiver should be granted falls upon the requester. More information on fees and fee waivers can be found at: https://www.justice.gov/oip .
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Chris
Christopher Durso, Esq.
U.S. Department of Labor
National Office FOIA Coordinator
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
200 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Rm N-3647
Washington, DC 20210
202/693-2009
This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you think you received this-email in error, please notify the sender immediately.
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Good afternoon Mr. Gottinger,
In response to your January 7, 2019, fax requesting a status update please see below OSHA's December 12, 2018, email to you regarding your two FOIA requests. We have not received a response to our email. At this time your December 6, 2018, faxes are not perfected FOIA requests though we are happy to work with you. Please contact me and we can discuss your inquiry.
Chris
Christopher Durso, Esq.
U.S. Department of Labor
National Office FOIA Coordinator
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
200 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Rm N-3647
Washington, DC 20210
202/693-2009
This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you think you received this-email in error, please notify the sender immediately.
From: Paul Gottinger
Greetings Chris,
Thank you for your response. I'm more than happy to significantly narrow my request, so it would be much more manageable. Perhaps it's best if we discuss the issue on the phone. I'll give you a call on Monday January 14. Is the best number to reach you at 202-693-2009 ?
Thanks,
Paul Gottinger
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Hi Paul,
Thank you for getting in touch. Monday at 202/693-2009 is fine. I’m on a conference call from 10:00 to 11:00 but am free most of the rest of the day. DC is about to have its first storm of the winter today so Monday may have us working off site. If that the case just leave me a message and our system will notify me to call you.
Chris
From: Paul Gottinger
Chris,
Thank you for your response. I'll contact you in the afternoon on Monday, say around 2pm EST.
Good luck with the storm and stay safe!
Best,
Paul
(cell) 763.360.5622
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 6, 2018. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information Act request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 6, 2018. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Good morning Mr. Gottinger,
As we have written below you do not have a pending Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Your faxes were not perfected FOIA requests. I have repeated invited you to call me to discuss your faxes and my February 11, 2019, voicemail to you (at 763.360.5622) has gone unreturned.
If you desire to work with OSHA on perfecting your requests please call me.
Chris
Christopher Durso, Esq.
U.S. Department of Labor
National Office FOIA Coordinator
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
200 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Rm N-3647
Washington, DC 20210
202/693-2009
This message may contain information that is privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. Do not disclose without consulting with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If you think you received this-email in error, please notify the sender immediately.
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~WRD000