Safety Tidbit #18 - OSHA Inspection 101

OSHA Inspection 101

Sorry for the delay folks.  I've been a bit remiss in keeping the blog up-to-date.  I will have a several Tidbits in a row to catch us up.

As I sit here and reflect on the past week’s events, I see a topic that might be worth taking a few minutes to explain a bit more about – What happens once OSHA conducts an inspection?  Specifically, I wish to address what might bring OSHA to your facility and what to do before the written citation arrives.

First, OSHA can only enter your facility if they have probable cause.  In the most adverse circumstances, this cause is in the form of an employee complaint or fatality.  Or, given the new injury reporting requirements (effective January 1, 2015), the cause could be due to an amputation, loss of an eye, or a hospitalization.  OSHA will not be too polite when coming to your facility under one of these circumstances, so you need to be prepared and articulate.  Alternatively, OSHA publishes on their website special emphasis programs that explain their cause to enter your facility due to a hazard known commonly to be present in your industry.  The inspections are programmed inspections. OSHA decides how many of these inspections will be conducted each year in the various emphasis programs.  The emphasis programs might be at the national level, regional level, or at the local office level. Of particular note, your facility may be subject to more than one program simultaneously so look at them all.

Step two, once they have conducted their inspection, disrupted your operations, and your workforce is sufficiently shaken up, the Compliance Health and Safety Officer (CSHO) will hold a closing conference to let you know the preliminary findings of their inspection.  Keep in mind, this closing is informal and the final hazards cited may change before you get the official report. The ultimate citation goes through a rigorous review process before the Area Director signs it on behalf of the Secretary of Labor.  Furthermore, by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, OSHA has six months from the opening conference to send you the final citation. This time is crucial as you probably will not hear anything from OSHA from the date of the closing conference until the happy day when you get the citation in the mail. There is no rhyme or reason as to how long OSHA will take to send you the final citation.

Now to go just a bit further, once you get the official citation you have only fifteen working days to act on it.  The action you take can be in one of three forms.  First, you do nothing and the fifteen days comes and goes. You pay your penalty and abate the hazards as noted in the citation.  Or, you can do opposite extreme and contest the citation, hire your own attorney and fight the allegations in the citation.  However, most employers do something in the middle, they schedule an informal conference with the Area Director and work towards an informal settlement without involving the courts.  I will leave more discussion about the informal conference for another Safety Tidbit at some later date.

Hope you find this information helpful hopefully, you won’t ever have to worry about an OSHA inspection.  If you have any questions please let me know.   Thanks for reading.