{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
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    "title" : "Safety and Transparency Through Data |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Safety and Transparency Through Data",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/07/01/safety-and-transparency-through-data/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Safety and Transparency Through Data","summary" : "You have the right to a safe workplace—and so do the employees at your favorite café, the local hospital and the construction company renovating homes in your neighborhood. But how can you tell if the businesses you patronize","date" : "2015-07-01T11:10:24-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"michael-pulsifer" : "Michael Pulsifer"},"topics" : {
        
            "application-programming-interface" : "Application programming interface",
            "open-data" : "Open data"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2015-07-01-safety-and-transparency-through-data.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2015/07/2015-07-01-safety-and-transparency-through-data.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2015/07/2015-07-01-safety-and-transparency-through-data.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2015/07/2015-07-01-safety-and-transparency-through-data.md","slug" : "safety-and-transparency-through-data","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/07/01/safety-and-transparency-through-data/","content" :"\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2015/06/400-x-317-pulsifer-Safety-and-Transparency-Through-Data-Quarry-API-Labor-DOL.jpg\"\n    alt=\"The Department of Labor\u0026#39;s Quarry API seen on the screens of various devices\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eYou have the right to a safe workplace—and so do the employees at your favorite café, the local hospital and the construction company renovating homes in your neighborhood.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut how can you tell if the businesses you patronize are keeping their workers safe? That’s a question we can answer with data.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-data\"\u003eThe Data\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s \u003ca href=\"http://developer.dol.gov/health-and-safety/dol-osha-enforcement/\"\u003eonline enforcement database\u003c/a\u003e includes details on the roughly 90,000 OSHA inspections conducted every year, and covers more than four decades. If you want to know what businesses in your area have been inspected, whether violations were found, and what citations and fines were issued, it’s all there. You can also find details on injuries and fatalities leading to accident inspections.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis data is handy for journalists and academic researchers, but it also has practical implications for citizens who want to ensure that they’re supporting businesses with a proven commitment to labor rights. And employers can use it to identify common citations in similar workplaces, so they can correct any potential issues before they cause problems on the job.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere’s the cool part: with the Labor Department’s newly launched, next-generation \u003ca href=\"http://usdepartmentoflabor.github.io/Quarry\"\u003eApplication Programming Interface\u003c/a\u003e (API), apps can easily be created around this data.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-api\"\u003eThe API\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo what is an API? It’s an interface that allows software programs and databases to share data and functions. For more background on APIs in the federal government, check out this \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVeiRCEwJx8\u0026amp;feature=youtu.be\"\u003evideo\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new API we’re releasing to support these datasets represents the next stage in the Labor Department’s open data efforts. This product, which we’re naming “\u003ca href=\"http://usdepartmentoflabor.github.io/Quarry/\"\u003eQuarry\u003c/a\u003e,” will expand opportunities for everyone using our data, and we’ll be rolling out frequent and regular enhancements. Also, because Quarry is an open source project, other agencies will be able to use it to create a free, secure and supported solution for developing their own centralized API—a “one stop shop” for their data.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s government transparency at its best.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that’s not all you’ll find in the API. It will soon carry data from the department’s other enforcement agencies: the \u003ca href=\"http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/\"\u003eEmployee Benefits Security Administration\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/\"\u003eOffice of Federal Contract Compliance Programs\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.msha.gov/\"\u003eMine Safety and Health Administration\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.dol.gov/whd/\"\u003eWage and Hour Division\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStay up-to-date by checking our \u003ca href=\"http://developer.dol.gov/\"\u003edeveloper portal\u003c/a\u003e and share your \u003ca href=\"http://usdepartmentoflabor.github.io/Quarry/\"\u003efeedback\u003c/a\u003e with us on GitHub.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis post was \u003ca href=\"https://blog.dol.gov/2015/06/26/safety-and-transparency-through-data/\"\u003eoriginally published on the Department of Labor blog\u003c/a\u003e by Mike Pulsifer, a lead IT specialist at the U.S. Department of Labor.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}