Archive for: OSHA & Compliance

While many employers anticipated an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) regarding COVID-19 on March 15 per President Biden’s Executive Order, OSHA took an unusual step and launched a COVID-19 National Emphasis Program (NEP) https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/directives/DIR_2021-01_CPL-03.pdf on March 12 before issuing the ETS. It is expected that an ETS will be forthcoming, but the only official statement from […]

Even the best-intentioned employers find the constantly changing federal OSHA guidance on COVID-19 unnerving. For example, consider the decision whether to report an employee’s hospitalization or death due to COVID-19, which was addressed with different guidance in April, May, July, and, most recently, October (see OSHA watch). Moreover, few citations were issued in the Spring […]

In a standard interpretation https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/2019-07-11 issued earlier this year, OSHA answered the question: Are online training programs acceptable for compliance with OSHA’s worker training requirements?  Interestingly, this standard interpretation is very similar in wording to one issued 25 years ago. While the agency acknowledges that online training is a useful component of an overall training […]

For the ninth consecutive year, Fall Protection – General Requirements is the most frequently cited standard, OSHA announced at the 2019 National Safety Council Congress & Expo. The rest of the preliminary list of the Top 10 violations for fiscal year 2019 also remained largely unchanged from FY 2018, with one minor change. Lockout/Tagout, which […]

OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application Injury Reporting is now available allowing employers to electronically enter their required 2016 injury and illness data from Form 300A. The Improve Track of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses final rule went into effect Jan. 1 with an initial compliance deadline of July 1. But OSHA has proposed delaying that deadline until Dec. 1, in an effort to […]