Presidential POWER Initiative Protects Federal Workers

(Published July 26, 2010)

President Obama has established a four-year Protecting Our Workers and Ensuring Reemployment (POWER) Initiative, covering fiscal years 2011 through 2014.  The POWER Initiative will extend prior workplace safety and health efforts of the federal government by setting more aggressive performance targets, encouraging the collection and analysis of data on the causes and consequences of frequent or severe injury and illness, and prioritizing safety and health management programs that have proven effective in the past.

Under the POWER Initiative, each executive department and agency will be expected to improve its performance in seven areas: 

• reducing total injury and illness case rates;
  
  
• reducing lost time injury and illness case rates;
  
  
• analyzing lost time injury and illness data;
  
  
• increasing the timely filing of Workers' Compensation claims;
  
  
• increasing the timely filing of wage-loss claims;
  
  
• reducing lost production day rates; and
  
  
• speeding employees' return to work in cases of serious injury or illness. 

Executive departments and agencies (except the U.S. Postal Service) shall coordinate with the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Office of Workers' Compensation Programs to establish performance targets in each category.  The Secretary of Labor shall lead the POWER Initiative by measuring both government-wide and agency-level performance and reporting to me annually.