| |
What Does OSHA
Do?
What Does
OSHA Do? OSHA 2056 2000
(Revised)
OSHA's
mission is to protect American workers. OSHA does
the following:
- Encourages
employers and employees to reduce workplace
hazards and to implement new safety and
health programs or improve existing
programs;
- Develops
mandatory job safety and health standards and
enforces them through work site inspections,
employer assistance, and sometimes, by
imposing citations or penalties or
both;
- Establishes
responsibilities and rights for employers and
employees to achieve better safety and health
conditions;
- Conducts
research, either directly or through grants
and contracts, to develop innovative ways of
dealing with workplace hazards;
- Maintains
a reporting and record keeping system to
monitor job-related injures and
illnesses;
- Establishes
training programs to increase the competence
of occupational safety and health personnel;
and
- Develops
analyzes, evaluates, and approves state
occupational safety and health
programs.
- Provides
technical and compliance assistance, training
and education, and cooperative programs and
partnerships to help employers reduce worker
accidents and injuries.
-
Nearly
everyone in America works or has someone
in the immediate family who does. Whether
you are an employer, employee, or have a
family member who works, you should know
about OSHA. The OSH Act covers:
All employers and their employees in the
50 states and all territories and
jurisdictions under federal authority.
Those jurisdictions include the District
of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands, American Samoa, Johnston Island,
the Canal Zone, and the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands as defined in the Outer
Continental Shelf Lands
Act.
OSHA coverage
includes:
- Employers
and employees in such varied fields as
manufacturing, construction, longshoring,
shipbuilding, ship breaking, ship repair,
agriculture, law and medicine, charity and
disaster relief, organized labor, and private
education.
- Religious
groups to the extent they employ workers for
secular purposes.
-
The
OSH Act does not cover the
following:
-
The
self-employed.
-
Immediate
members of farming families that do not
employ outside workers.
-
Employees
whose working conditions are regulated by
other federal agencies under other federal
statutes. These include mine workers,
certain truckers and rail workers, and
atomic energy workers.
-
Public
employees in state and local
governments.
What
Are My Responsibilities [as an
employer] Under the OSH
Act?
If you
are an employer the OSH Act covers,
you must:
-
Meet
your general duty responsibility to
provide a workplace free from recognized
hazards;
-
Keep
workers informed about OSHA and safety and
health matters with which they are
involved
-
Comply
in a responsible manner with standards,
rules, and regulations issued under the
OSH Act;
-
Be
familiar with mandatory OSHA
standards;
-
Make
copies of standards available to employees
for review upon request;
-
Evaluate
workplace conditions;
-
Minimize or
eliminate potential hazards;
-
Make
sure employees have and use safe, properly
maintained tools and equipment (including
appropriate personal protective
equipment);
-
Warn
employees of potential hazards;
-
Establish
or update operating procedures and
communicate them to employees;
-
Provide
medical examinations when required;
-
Provide
training required by OSHA
standards;
-
Report
within 8 hours any accident that results
in a fatality or the hospitalization of
three or more employees;
-
Keep
OSHA-required records of work-related
injuries and illnesses, unless otherwise
specified;
-
Post a
copy of the OSHA 200--Log and Summary
of Occupational Injuries and
Illnesses for the prior year each
year during the entire month of February
unless otherwise specified;
-
Post,
at a prominent location within the
workplace, the OSHA poster (OSHA 2203)
informing employees of their rights and
responsibilities;
-
Provide
employees, former employees, and their
representatives access to the OSHA
200 form at a reasonable time and in
a reasonable manner;
-
Provide
access to employee medical records and
exposure records;
-
Cooperate
with OSHA compliance officers;
-
Not
discriminate against employees who
properly exercise their rights under the
OSH Act;
-
Post
OSHA citations and abatement verification
notices at or near the worksite involved;
and
-
Abate
cited violations within the prescribed
period.
|
|
