[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 140 (Thursday, July 22, 2010)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 43029-43030]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-18176]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 140 / Thursday, July 22, 2010 / 
Presidential Documents  

[[Page 43029]]


                Memorandum of July 19, 2010

                
The Presidential POWER Initiative: Protecting Our 
                Workers and Ensuring Reemployment

                Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and 
                Agencies

                Each year Federal civilian employees are injured or 
                fall ill on the job in significant numbers. Although 
                the Federal Government has made progress in reducing 
                workplace injuries and illnesses in recent years, its 
                workers (excluding those employed by the U.S. Postal 
                Service) still filed more than 79,000 new claims and 
                received over $1.6 billion in workers' compensation 
                payments in fiscal year 2009. Many of these work-
                related injuries and illnesses are preventable, and 
                executive departments and agencies can and should do 
                even more to improve workplace safety and health, 
                reduce the financial burden of injury on taxpayers, and 
                relieve unnecessary suffering by workers and their 
                families.

                Therefore, I am establishing a 4-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:

(i) reducing total injury and illness case rates;

(ii) reducing lost time injury and illness case rates;

(iii) analyzing lost time injury and illness data;

(iv) increasing the timely filing of workers' compensation claims;

(v) increasing the timely filing of wage-loss claims;

(vi) reducing lost production day rates; and

(vii) 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.

                Each executive department and agency shall bear its own 
                costs for participating in the POWER Initiative, and 
                nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair 
                or otherwise affect the authority granted by law to an 
                executive department or agency, or the head thereof.

[[Page 43030]]

                This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, 
                create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, 
                enforceable at law or in equity by any party against 
                the United States, its departments, agencies, or 
                entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any 
                other person.

                The Secretary of Labor is authorized and directed to 
                publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

                THE WHITE HOUSE,

                    Washington, July 19, 2010

[FR Doc. 2010-18176
Filed 7-21-10; 11:15 am]
Billing code 4510-23-P