The charge state of oxygen atoms sputtered from a metal surface is studied, using recent theoretical results on the O--Al surface. These were obtained with the coupled angular mode method and fully take into account the multielectron, multistate and polarization effects of the O--Al interaction. The O/O- ratio is determined for various velocities of the sputtered particles as a function of the metal surface workfunction. The O- fraction is found to vary very rapidly with the surface workfunction. A strong polarization effect is also observed, i.e. the O- survival probability strongly depends on its polarization (M(L) = 0 or +/- 1). The results are found in very good agreement with the experimental results of Yu (1981) on O- ions sputtered from O and alkali covered V and Nb surfaces.