Safety Tidbit #34 – Religious Freedom
I had an interesting question this
week while touring a job site. My client
was worried about his workers after they told him they were not going to wear
certain personal protective equipment due to their religious beliefs. Now, I’m
not advocating that the employer violates the worker’s First Amendment rights.
However, I would like to discuss the rationale behind the employer’s
concern. Most of us are aware of the
long standing exemption that OSHA has given to the Amish exempting them from
having to wear hard hats as it conflicts with their beliefs. However, OSHA has gone back and forth as have
the courts on this issue as you might well imagine. Until ultimately, in 1993 President Clinton
signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which, simply put, laws
"neutral" toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as
laws intended to interfere with religious exercise, and that governments should
not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification. Therefore, OSHA current directive STD
01-06-005 grants “an exemption from citations to employers of employees
who, for reasons of personal religious convictions, object to wearing hard hats
in the workplace. There may be, however, circumstances in the future that would
involve a hard hat hazard sufficiently grave to raise a compelling governmental
interest for requiring the wearing of hard hats, notwithstanding employee
personal religious convictions.”
So where does that
leave us, well, if the employer has compelling reasons for having the workers
wear hard hats the employer can have the worker wear a hard hat. A reason would
be that a hazard of objects falling from above exists. Remember; the employer has a duty to protect
the worker from hazards and provide a safe and healthful workplace. That said,
most of our heads do not meet the ANSI requirements for hard hats (although
some folks might think they have pretty hard heads!). There was a time we
couldn’t get construction workers to wear a hardhat, ever. Now, the culture is
they put one on as soon as they set foot on the job sites and site rules
mandate this practice. Also, PPE
manufacturers are making hard hats that look like cowboy hats so why couldn’t they
make one that looks like the Amish straw or felt hats? I guess then the
question becomes would these hard hats be acceptable to the Amish
community? If the hats were available
and the Amish community accepted them, then they would be able to wear hard
hats like everyone else, problem solved.
However, until the hard hats are available, a risk assessment may be in
order to ask the question: does the hazard from falling objects exist
everywhere on the job site? If the look
alike hard hats are not acceptable then deciding the areas the vulnerable
workers may become a very real issue. I have spoken to a few groups at job
sites over the years and when the hard hat area is well defined (not just a
blanket statement: when you step foot onto the job site) the Amish workers have
not had a problem with wearing hard hats then changing back into their
traditional hats once out of the area.
So enough about
hard hats, my client’s issue and why I found it interesting was that his employee
said his religious belief required his to have a beard and could not wear a
half-face air purifying respirator. First,
I hate respirators and don’t like to see anyone have to wear them. However, I advised the client that there were
alternatives available that allow the worker to keep his beard while still
protecting him (e.g., a loose-fitting hood with powered-air purifying or inline
respirators). OSHA makes this clear in
their letter
of interpretation dated August 5, 2011.
Ultimately, a good risk assessment with proper ventilation and changing
their work practices actually reduced their exposures to “safe” levels, and a
respirator was no longer necessary.
The bottom line is
that the employer sometimes may not be able to take the easy path. Their safety
policy should not be just to dictate the wearing of PPE. Sometimes you need to dig deeper to look for
a more realistic approach one with a longer lasting effect. A risk assessment should be the starting
point. And personal protective equipment is always the last line of defense.
Oh, did I mention that really hate respirators??
Hope you learned
something! Thanks for reading!
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