You've been cited. Here's what happens now.
A calm, factual guide to the days ahead — from a team built around a former OSHA inspector.
First, the clock.
From the day you receive the citation, you have 15 working days to respond. Within that window you can:
Accept and abate.
Pay the penalty, correct the hazard by the abatement date, document the correction.
Request an informal conference.
A meeting with the OSHA Area Director where you can present your side, provide documentation, and discuss the citation, the penalty, and the abatement dates. Employers who arrive prepared — with real documentation — routinely negotiate meaningful reductions. This is usually the highest-leverage step available, and it costs nothing to request.
Contest the citation.
A formal Notice of Contest moves the matter to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. This is a legal proceeding — involve counsel.
Whatever you choose, the citation must be posted at or near the violation location as required, and abatement obligations have their own deadlines. Don't let the 15 days pass while you decide.
What happens next depends on what your record already shows.
Two contractors receive the same citation. One arrives at the informal conference with a story to tell. The other arrives with a record: the training the employee completed, in their language, with a signed acknowledgment; the inspections that were walking that site; the corrections that were made and verified. Same citation — very different conversations, and very different outcomes.
The uncomfortable truth: the record either exists by now or it doesn't. But what you do this week still matters — and what you build after this citation determines how the next one goes.
Talk to someone who's been on the other side of the table.
Our Chief Safety Officer spent ten years as an OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officer. A consultation about your specific citation covers:
- What the citation actually alleges
- How the informal conference works and how to prepare for it
- What documentation you have and what it supports
- Your realistic options
Whatever happens with this one — make it the last one you face unprepared.
The next inspection is not a hypothetical. The record that changes its outcome takes months to exist, and it can only be built before you need it. That's what we do.
How Compligence worksDue Diligence Safety and Health LLC is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Citation responses are time-sensitive legal matters; we encourage you to involve qualified counsel — and our documentation makes their job easier.