Safety Tidbit #26-What is an OSHA Referral

A friend and colleague asked me the other day “What is an OSHA referral inspection?”

OSHA’s mission is “… to assure the safety and health of America’s working men and women by promulgating and enforcing standards and regulations …” Also, OSHA must manage their resources wisely, so a priority system is used to schedule inspections.

First – Imminent danger (falling from roof)

Second - Fatality/Catastrophe (death/loss of eye)

Third – Complaints/Referrals

Fourth – Programmed Inspections (Special Emphasis Programs)

OSHA handles complaints and referrals the same way.  I wrote a little about this in the previous Safety Tidbit. A referral is an allegation of a potential workplace hazard or violation received from a source other than an employee or employee representative.

OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officer (CSHO) - Information based on direct observation of an OSHA CSHO. For instance, a CSHO may be inspecting a workplace for safety hazard and notices a potential health hazard or violation (e.g., strong chemical smell or a respirator user with a ZZ Top-type beard), so they refer the matter to a health CSHO to investigate further.

Safety and health agency – NIOSH, State programs, consultation, state or local health departments or other health professionals in other federal agencies.  Any official governmental safety and health professional can refer their information to OSHA and OSHA will look into the allegations further.

Discrimination complaints – a whistleblower investigator (not the individual whistleblower but the investigator to confirm the allegations of the whistleblower).  OSHA inspects all referrals from OSHA Whistleblower investigators.

Other government agencies – Federal, state or local governmental agencies or their employees including fire and police departments. Often, OSHA Area Offices will develop working relationships with the local fire and police departments, so when they are onsite for a fire and investigation, and something appears to them as a safety violation, they will contact OSHA directly.

Media – This can be either news items reported in the media or reported directly to OSHA by the media.  So if the morning TV news shouts out that an incident happened at the local manufacturing plant, OSHA may decide to inspect that company.

Employer/Employer Representatives – Employers or their representatives may contact OSHA directly of accidents other than fatalities or catastrophes.  Not often does an employer representative (management) refer a hazard to OSHA however, they wish to push the employer to make changes.

So as you can see there are many ways that OSHA can be made aware of workplace hazards and all of these sources come before a general programmed inspection from a Special Emphasis Program.

Hope you found this Safety Tidbit informative.  Thanks for reading.

Source: OSHA Field Operations Manual

Safety Tidbit #25 – Formal vs. Non-formal Complaints

This week two of my three clients recently had interactions with OSHA due to employee complaints.  In Safety Tidbit #18, I gave a little introduction about OSHA inspections, why they chose your company and the basic process of an inspection.  Today I want to just focus on complaints.  As I mentioned in Safety Tidbit #18 when OSHA shows up at your door step because an employee complained they come in strong and none too nice.  You have to remember at this point their job is to protect the worker not your business. But I get ahead of myself.

Question: Does OSHA inspect after every employee complaint? No.  Back in the early days there were so many complaints that OSHA couldn’t possibly inspect every workplace.  Not to mention this is a very reactionary method of enforcement and OSHA really wants to prevent injuries from happening. So, they devised a procedure of prioritizing complaints.  OSHA defines two types of complaints non-formal and formal.  Formal Complaints get an inspection non-formal complaints start with (and hopefully end with) a phone call and either a fax or email with the actual allegations.  Obviously, if you are going to have a complaint the non-formal complaint is desirable.

When an employee calls into OSHA to place a complaint a series of questions must be asked.  First, is the employee a current employee and second is the alleged hazardous condition current or ongoing?  If either of these answers is “no” then the complaint should be placed into the non-formal category.  Conversely, if the answer is “yes” then the complaint may be placed into the formal category.  However, to move to formal category a couple of other items need to happen either the employee formally (thus the name – formal complaint) signs the complaint.  Remember, OSHA does not divulge the identity of the employee to the company however, sometimes either the complainant doesn’t care or the company is so small that deducing who the complainant is isn’t too difficult. 

The other way a complaint can become formal is if the nature of the allegations is egregious in nature (someone is going to fall off the roof) or in a special emphasis program that OSHA is researching (e.g., silica, amputations, etc.).  The final way a complaint could become formal is if the company is question seems to have a lot of activity around it for instance multiple non-formal complaints over a short period of time or if there was a non-formal complaint and the response given by the employer is challenged by the complainant.

Ultimately, if OSHA calls you with an allegation of a hazardous condition you need to take it seriously.  Do your investigation thoroughly and give OSHA a timely and complete response. You may want to give Onsite Consultation or your insurance company a call as they can help you evaluate the allegations and lend credibility to your response. 

Hope this helps and thanks for reading.

Safety Tidbit #24 - Average Noise Levels

Americans lead a noisy lifestyle.  Sources of noise vary greatly, lawnmowers, cars, airplanes, trains, PA systems, etc.  We are bombarded by noise wherever we go.  But how much is too much.  OSHA requires a hearing conservation program whenever workers are exposed to noise more than 85 decibels continuously for 8 hours [1910.95(c)].

So what does an average noise exposure look like?  Here is an analogy I used recently with a client.  Say you drive 480 miles (i.e. from Harrisburg, PA to Charleston, NC) and it took you 8 hours to complete.  Your average speed for the trip would be 60 miles per hour.  Now you know you didn’t drive 60 MPH the entire time.  You needed to stop to get gas or a drink, traffic lights, etc.  So there was some amount of time during the trip where your speed was less than 60 MPH (sometimes even stopped).  Therefore, you must have traveled above 60 MPH at some point to get to your destination in 8 hours.  Now, I’m not saying you were speeding, but the point is that if our noise level is 85 decibels for the average and some of the workday we are away from the noise, breaks, repairs, setup, etc. then other times the noise levels are well above 85 decibels.

So, with so many point-sources of noise how do we know when we exceed 85 decibels as an average for the entire day?  Well, you can evaluate the noise from every source and determine how much time is spent using each source and the mathematically add them together.  Or you can use a noise dosimeter that takes readings every minute and catalogs the readings and does the math for you.  Dosimeters are nice because they are very portable, but they also allow you to capture all noise sources (even noise from nearby workers or operations) that also contribute to the worker’s exposure.  But also, you can profile a given period of the workday.  For instance, you can catalog noise exposures for two or three hours.  Employers divide the typical workday into four parts by the AM break, lunch, and the PM break.  Cataloging one of these segments with all of the noise sources during the time can give you a snapshot of the whole day.  Or similarly, an entire operation can be evaluated. This sort of monitoring gives you exposures during a specific task that again gives all of the noise exposure during the task given the specific environmental conditions.

Furthermore, we know workplace conditions change day to day (and even hour to hour) so taking one noise reading one time represents noise exposure for that set of circumstances only.  Ultimately, the industrial hygienist wants to evaluate the exposure of every worker, during every day during every shift.  Unfortunately, we will never be able to gather that much data so we must be as efficient and effective as we can and using dosimeters to gather discreet times of the workday is a good way to gather all of the noise exposure in a given environment and evaluate a given task or workday.

Ultimately, a hearing conservation medical surveillance program must be provided when the average noise exposure exceeds 85 decibels for 8-hours.  That is exposure from all noise sources not just the noise from the individual pieces of equipment.  Furthermore, even if your average noise exposure is below 85 decibels, any time the noise exceeds 85 decibels, I recommend using hearing protection.  You only get one set of ears to hear with so let’s keep them healthy!