What does the new grant round involve?
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), part of the U.S. Department of Labor, awarded approximately $10.2 million to 67 organizations across the United States on October 1, 2026. The funding comes from the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program and is intended for workplace safety education and training, so that workers and employers learn to recognize serious workplace hazards and to develop and implement safety and health programs.
The grants specifically target classroom-based, instructor-led training for workers and for small-business employers, with priority given to industries with high rates of workplace injuries, occupational illnesses, and fatalities. Recipient organizations are expected to develop ready-to-use, immediately deployable training materials.
Who is the training for?
The training focuses on three related areas: awareness of workplace hazards, prevention and control of those hazards, and recognizing hazards on the job. Participants also learn how to implement a safety and health program within a company. The target audience is explicitly smaller employers and their workers, since smaller businesses often have less capacity to develop their own training programs than larger, established organizations.
Context
The Susan Harwood program has existed since 1978, when it began under the name “New Directions.” It received its current name in 1997, in honor of Susan Harwood, who worked at OSHA for seventeen years, including as director of the Office of Risk Assessment, and contributed to standards for substances including benzene, formaldehyde, asbestos, bloodborne pathogens, and lead exposure in construction. Harwood is also credited with OSHA’s cotton dust standard, which led to a sharp decline in byssinosis, a lung disease among textile workers. Each year OSHA selects priority training topics based on data on fatal workplace injuries, national enforcement priorities, and pending regulations.
The program is thus an example of a structural, decades-long government investment in workplace safety training. That makes it relevant beyond the United States as well: it shows how public funding of training capacity at smaller employers can help reduce workplace injuries, an issue relevant in virtually every country with an industrial and small-business sector.
Source: OSHA Awards $10.2 Million in Susan Harwood Workplace Safety Training Grants, October 1, 2026
Also researched: Susan Harwood Training Grant Program – Overview (OSHA.gov)
