Eliminating Workplace Hazards - Oshlaw
Eliminating workplacehazards1
This toolkit is dedicated to the working men and womenwho have lost their lives, limbs, or otherwise beeninjured or made ill from workplace hazards. We hope theinformation in this toolkit will help prevent such tragediesin the future.The Occupational Safety & Health Law Project works to strengthen health andsafety protections and empower workers to improve these protections on the job.Through education about workers’ legal rights and how to exercise those rights,appellate litigation in cases involving health and safety issues, legal strategies toenhance workers’ rights to safe and healthy workplaces, and providing expertadvice and technical assistance, the OSH Law Project works to make sure noworker is killed, injured, or made ill at work, and that all workers receive adequatecompensation for any harm they have suffered if an accident or illness occurs.This Toolkit provides general legal information. It is not advice about your particularcase, situation, or citation. This Toolkit does not replace the advice of an attorneyand exceptions may apply to your situation that are not covered here.The OSH Law Project is a project of NEO Philanthropy.Learn more at www.oshlaw.org. 2019, OSH Law ProjectAuthors: Emily Tulli, Jordan Barab, and Randy RabinowitzDesign: Alex DoddsAll photographs: Earl Dotter, earldotter.com2
Eliminating workplacehazardsA toolkit for workers, worker advocates,and union representatives.
CContentsChapter 1Introduction // 1Chapter 2How to identify a safety and health problem at your workplace? // 3Chapter 3Safety and health, health programs, and safety and health committees // 8Chapter 4Types of OSHA inspections // 13Chapter 5Filing an OSHA complaint // 16Chapter 6What happens during an OSHA inspection? // 20Chapter 7Employee participation in walkaround inspections and interviews // 22Chapter 8Citations and penalties // 25Chapter 9Collective bargaining for safety and health // 27Appendix: Sample forms, letters, and surveys // 33Endnotes // 54
1IntroductionToday, far too many workers are injured, madeill, or killed on the job.and health issues, and the agency tasked withenforcing the OSH Act’s mandates. OSHA isa federal government agency, part of the U.S.Department of Labor.Each week in the United States, nearly 100workers are killed on the job1 and nearly 57,000workers report illness and nonfatal injuries.2In about one-half of the states, federal OSHAenforces the OSH Act and its standards andregulations. However, in 22 states, the stategovernment has its own OSHA agency andthe state enforces its state safety and healthlaw (see Figure 1, on page 2). In these states,referred to as “state-plan states,” federal OSHAmonitors whether the state does an effective jobof enforcing the law. The procedures in stateplan states are similar, but not identical, to thoseused by federal OSHA. If you work in a stateplan state, you may need to consult a lawyer ora union representative who knows how the stateOSHA program works.This Toolkit is a collection of information andresources designed to educate workers andtheir advocates about how to identify workplacehazards and how to use the collective bargainingand OSHA inspection process to reduce oreliminate those hazards.3This Toolkit refers often to the OccupationalSafety and Health Act of 1970 (the OSHAct)4 and the Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration (OSHA). The OSH Act is theprimary statute that guarantees a worker’s rightto a safe workplace. OSHA is the predominantfederal enforcement agency on workplace safety1
FIGURE 1OSHA oversight, by state2Note: In Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, federal OSHA covers private sector workers andstate OSHA programs cover public sector workers.The standards that OSHA adopts are theminimum protections workers should expect.Employers can, and should, provide greaterprotection from on-the-job hazards. Relyingon OSHA inspections and citations to achievea safe workplace should be a last resort, whenother efforts to persuade an employer to protectworkers have failed.who want to flout the law, usually have greaterresources available to find and fix job hazards.Also, OSHA inspections and citations rarelyprovide workers with a quick, comprehensivesolution to workplace safety and healthproblems. For that reason, this Toolkit emphasizesother approaches workers can take to protectthemselves.Your feedback is critical to keep this Toolkituseful and current. Our goal is to ensure thatany worker or worker representative—acrossindustries and across the United States—hasaccess to this information. Please contact theOSH Law Project at oshlaw.org with feedback orquestions.Relying on OSHA inspectionsand citations to achieve a safeworkplace should be a last resort.Unfortunately, OSHA has very limited resourcesfor setting and enforcing safety and healthstandards. Employers generally, including those2
2How to identify a safety and healthproblem at your workplaceHazard identificationStep 1: What hazards are workersfacing?If you are reading this, it’s probably because thereare safety and health problems in the workplacethat you would like your employer to fix. As youmay know, the OSH Act gives workers the rightto safe and healthful working conditions and itis the duty of employers to provide workplacesthat are free of known hazards that could harmtheir employees.5 Generally speaking, a hazard isa condition or activity in the workplace that couldcause injury to workers or make them ill.The first step to toward resolving a safety andhealth issue is to identify the problem. This maytake some detective work.There are several different types of hazardsfound in workplace: You may be able to sit down with your employer,lay out the facts about the hazards you havefound or the symptoms employees are concernedabout and convince your employer to fix theproblem. Sometimes the employer will agreebecause it’s the right thing to do or because youhave convinced the employer it is legally requiredto fix—or abate—the hazards. ChemicalsInfectious diseasesDangerous machineryBad job design, heavy packages, orabusive production quotasWorkplace violenceHeat or coldUnsafe vehicles or driving conditionsThere are several ways to get general informationon common workplace safety and healthproblems:However, if you are not sure what hazards areinjuring or sickening you and your co-workers,or you do not know how many workers havethe same complaint, or your employer refuses toaddress the problems, you may need to file anOSHA complaint or take some other action toensure the problem is fixed and your workplaceis safe.In any case, before taking any action with theemployer, OSHA, or any other parties, you needto know what hazards workers are facing, howwidespread the effects are, and what kind ofinjuries or illnesses workers may have sufferedThere are various ways to gather this information.3 OSHA’s webpage has information aboutworkplace hazards. Some of these arecovered by OSHA standards; some arenot covered by OSHA standards, suchas heat/cold, workplace violence orergonomic hazards. Where no OSHAstandard regulates a hazard, OSHA mayrely on its General Duty Clause to forcean employer to abate the hazard.6 The National Institute for OccupationalSafety and Health has numerouswebpages that cover safety and healthhazards, as well as summaries of studiesand research covering workplace hazards.
Many unions or worker centers also havesafety and health departments or trainedstaff and webpages that cover commonhazards affecting their members. Local Committees for OccupationalSafety & Health (COSH) groups are smallnonprofit safety and health advocacyorganizations located around the countrywhich may also have information aboutsafety and health hazards.Where a union represents workers, the employermay have an obligation under the NationalLabor Relations Act (NLRA) to provide the unionwith information on safety and health hazards.The union’s right to information is discussed inChapter 9 on page 27.Step 2: Ask workersYou can often learn a lot about safety and healthproblems just by asking your fellow workers.Your co-workers may know who is getting hurtor sick, what machinery safeguards are broken ormissing, when “near-misses” have occurred thatalmost hurt somebody, and other informationthat will help identify a problem.Information about past OSHA citations foryour employer or other employers in the sameindustry is posted on OSHA’s website.In addition, since 2015 employers have beenrequired to report every hospitalization,amputation, or loss of an eye to OSHA.7 OSHAposts this information on its website, althoughit’s often significantly delayed.One easy way to get this information is todistribute surveys or questionnaires askingworkers about the hazards they experienceand injuries or illnesses they have suffered.Written surveys are useful; electronic surveysusing Google polls may also be useful. If thereis high participation, health surveys can provideimportant data to help persuade your employerA guide to searching OSHA’s website is includedin the Appendix on page 35.4
that a problem exists that needs to be corrected.And, if the employer does not fix the problem,data from a safety and health survey can formthe basis of an OSHA complaint.A sample survey with questions about workersafety and health is included in the Appendix onpage 37.Another useful tool to identify safety and healthproblems is hazard mapping. Hazard mapping,a technique used by some unions and COSHgroups, relies on a map or floorplan of theworkplace and asks workers to identify the tasksthat cause health problems or the locationswhere hazards are present. Examples includelocked exit doors, blocked aisles, or passageways(see Figure 2, below). A more detailed mappingexercise is included in the Appendix on page 39.When developing a survey, try not to usetechnical language and ask specific questions, ifpossible. Example questions may include: What kind of “close calls” or “near misses”have workers experienced?What kind of injuries have workerssuffered or have they seen in co-workers?Ask specific questions that will provideconcrete details about workplace hazardslike, “Do you feel threated with assault inyour workplace?” or “How is the air qualityin your area?”Do workers report injuries or illnesses? Ifno, why not?How does management respond whenworkers report injuries or become ill?Note: Workers who conduct surveys publiclyshould consider ways to limit the employer’sability to retaliate against those involved. Thesecould include email addresses or websites thatkeep confidential both the leaders of the surveyas well as the people who respond.FIGURE 2Sample hazard mapCredit: School Action for Safety and Health5
Step 3: Gather employerinformationThe 300 Log can tell you: OSHA requires employers to record mostinjuries and illnesses.8 In addition, many OSHAstandards require employers to conduct exposuremonitoring to determine the levels of toxicsubstances in the workplace as well as noise,and to offer medical exams to workers exposedto certain toxins and noise. Many employersvoluntarily conduct such exposure monitoringor medical exams beyond those required byOSHA standards. OSHA’s regulations requirethat employers make these records, which aredescribed below, easily available to workers onrequest, at no cost.9 What kind and how many injuries andillnesses workers have hadWho had an injury or illness, what theirjob is and where they work15How much time has been lost due to theinjury or illness, which in some cases tellsyou how severe it wasAll names must be included on the forms,except in certain cases where namescan be removed (for example, individualswho were victims of sexual assault orwho have contracted HIV, hepatitis B ortuberculosis on the job16OSHA Form 300A is a summary of the Form300.17 Employers are required to post thesummary Form 300A every February and theform must stay posted for 3 months.18 Severalyears of the summary can be useful to establishpatterns and trends.Many OSHA standards—and in some cases,state laws—also require that employers developwritten safety and health programs, either forsafety and health hazards in general, or forcompliance with specific rules like chemicalhazard training, “lockout” procedures and training,or protection from excessive noise. Constructionemployers are required to have adequate generalsafety protection supervision and training forworkers on hazards.10 Employers are required toprovide workers with these written programs onrequest.OSHA Form 301 Incident Reports are detaileddescriptions of each of the injuries or illnessesincluded on the log.19 These Incident Reportshave much more detail about how the injuryoccurred. Some states require similar records ofworkers’ compensation injuries. Employers mayuse the same form to satisfy both the OSHA andworkers’ compensation requirements.Injury and illness recordsOSHA requires that most employers with morethan 10 employees make and keep records ofworkplace injuries, except those requiring onlyfirst-aid treatment (such as a Band-aid or icepack).11 Employers must keep these records atthe worksite for at least five years.12Any current or former employee, or therepresentative of an employee, may request acopy of OSHA Form 300.20 The employer mustprovide copies of the requested records, freeof charge, to workers by the end of the nextbusiness day after they are requested.21Employers are required to keep three differenttypes of injury and illness records: OSHA Form300; OSHA Form 300A; and OSHA Form 301.These forms can be found on OSHA’s website.For the Incident Report, workers have the rightto receive reports only about incidents in whichthey were involved (for workers concernedabout retaliation, see a discussion of retaliationin Chapter 5 on page 16). However, a unionrepresenting the workers may obtain copies ofall Incident Reports. The employer has sevencalendar days to provide the union with thecopies it requested22 and the employer mustremove personal information from the copy ofthe OSHA Form 301 Incident Report given to theunion.OSHA Form 300, commonly referred to as“the OSHA Log”, is a list of serious injuries andillnesses that occurred in your workplace.13 Theemployer must maintain a separate log for eachcalendar year. A serious injury or illness is onethat required medical treatment other than firstaid, restricted work (“light-duty”), or days awayfrom work (“lost-time”).146
Exposure dataMedical recordsOSHA regulations guarantee workers and any oftheir representatives (not just a labor union) theright to receive data about what chemicals orother hazards—such as asbestos, silica or noise—they are being exposed to.Workers have a right to receive their ownmedical records at no cost to the employee.25Employee representatives must first get writtenpermission from the worker to gain access totheir medical information.26 These records mustbe provided within 15 days of the request.27Many OSHA standards require employers tomeasure the amount of hazardous substancesin the air to find out if their workers arebeing exposed to toxic substances at levelsabove OSHA limits, as well as noise (exposuremonitoring). Employees or their representativeshave the right to observe any exposuremonitoring to ensure that the results representthe normal exposure that workers receive.23Employees also have a right to obtain copies ofany monitoring results—even if the monitoringwas not required by an OSHA standard (such asheat or cold measurements).24 In an organizedworkplace, section 8(a)(5) of the NLRA mayalso give the union the right to obtain safetyand health information on chemical and otherhazards.Some OSHA standards require medical tests tofind out if a worker’s health has been affectedbecause of exposures at work. For example,employers must test for hearing loss in workersexposed to excessive noise or for decreasedlung function in workers exposed to asbestos.28Employers sometimes require workers to getspecific medical tests for workplace hazards,even if OSHA does not require it. For example,breathing tests for fitness to wear a requiredrespirator may be used.29Samples of request letters for injury logs,exposure data, and medical records are includedin the Appendix starting on page 47.2Key takeaways21The OSH Act gives workers the right to safe and healthful working conditions and givesemployers the duty to provide workplaces that are free of known hazards that could harmtheir employees.2There are three steps to learning about hazards in your workplace: research, askworkers, and gather information from your employer.3OSHA Forms 300 and 301 are available to you and may shed light on the types ofhazards occurring in your workplace.7
3Safety and health programs andcommitteesThere are two important tools for making theworkplace safer: written safety and healthprograms addressing all hazards present in theworkplace and labor-management safety andhealth committees. Each tool is discussed below. Employees in organized workplaces may haveadditional opportunities to bargain for safety andhealth programs or labor-management safety andhealth committees. Bargaining over safety andhealth is discussed in Chapter 9 on page 27. When employers systematicallyevaluate and correct hazards inthe workplace, employees sufferfewer injuries and illnesses.Management leadershipParticipation by workers and theirrepresentativesHazard identification and assessment,including a mechanism for determiningany new hazards that are created bychanges in the work processHazard prevention and control: Theemployer shall make every reasonableeffort to promptly abate unsafe orunhealthy working conditionsTraining and education for employeesand contractorsProgram evaluation and improvement:The program should be evaluatedannually and any shortcomings shall beaddressedSafety and health committeesSafety and health committees—includingcommittees that are workers-only, union-only,and/or labor-management—can improve theprocess of identifying and addressing workplacesafety and health problems.Safety and health programsStudies show that when employers systematicallyevaluate and correct hazards in the workplace,employees suffer fewer injuries and illnesses.30Federal OSHA recommends, but does notrequire, that employers develop comprehensive,written safety and health programs.31 ManyOSHA standards require written safety andhealth programs for specific hazards, suchas confined space entry and lockout/tagoutprocedures. Several states require someemployers to develop written comprehensivesafety and health programs. These are describedin Figure 3 on page 9. Finally, in a unionworkplace, the union can bargain for a writtensafety and health program.Several states have adopted laws or regulationsthat provide workers a way to participate inworkplace safety and health issues beyondthe protections in the OSH Act and NRLA.Several states, for example, require employersto establish and maintain safety and healthcommittees through which employees andemployer representatives conduct regularinspections and discuss workplace safety issuesand improvements. Some of these requirementsare imposed through state OSHA plans;32 othersare legislative or regulatory initiatives imposedthrough state workers’ compensation systems.33To be effective, the program should include thefollowing elements:8
FIGURE 3Summary of existing state health committee mitteesInsuranceConsulting or premiumrecognitionreductionsIf mandatory, who is covered?*AlabamaAll employersArkansas“Hazardous” employersCaliforniaAll employersColoradoConnecticutEmployers with 25 employees; “Hazardous” smallemployers.DelawareHawaiiAll employersIdahoIndianaKansasLouisianaEmployers with 15 employeesMichiganEmployers in construction industryMinnesotaEmployers with 25 employees. Committeesrequired for “Haz
injured or made ill from workplace hazards. We hope the information in this toolkit will help prevent such tragedies in the future. The Occupational Safety & Health Law Project works to strengthen health and safety protections and
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the landscaping industry and ways in which workers can adopt basic safety techniques that can help to prevent accidents. The hazards covered in this section are the following: Sun and High Temperatures Machine Hazards Fall Hazards Electrical Hazards Pesticides Traffic Hazards
Workplace 2.0 (the Workplace), and introduced the initial concepts of space based on the functional requirements of workers and the amount of time spent in the workplace. In line with current Workplace 2.0 principles, and after a comprehensive review, the Standards have been revised to reflect the addition of Workplace 2.0. Renamed the
Safety & Seismic Safety Element is a required element of the Master Plan per NRS 278.160. For purposes of the City of Las Vegas, the Safety & Seismic Safety Element will address the following sub-elements: Fire Hazards Flood Hazards Seismic Hazards Noise Hazards Hazardous Materials Landslide Hazards
2 Natural Hazards Observer June 2016 The mission of the Natural Hazards Center is to ad-vance and communicate knowledge on hazards mitigation and disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. Using an all-hazards and interdisciplinary framework, the Cen-ter fosters information sharing and integration of activities
Natural Hazards Influenced by Climate Change 192 3.12.1 Health and Natural Hazards Data 192 3.12.2 Type of Natural Hazards Considered 193 3.12.3 Direct and Indirect Impacts on Health 193 3.12.4 Impacts of Combined Natural Hazard Events 193 3.12.5 Cascading Impacts of Hazards and Health System Impacts 194 3.12.6 Behaviours and Lifestyle 194
natural hazards deemed to threaten property and persons within the campus boundaries, and also . Hazard mitigation is any action taken to permanently reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from the effects of hazards. These hazards can be of any type, including natural hazards (such as tornados, floods, winter storms .
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