Safety Tidbit 3.23 - Earbuds a.k.a. Hearing Protection?

Safety Tidbit 3.23 – Earbuds a.k.a. Hearing Protection?

Reference: OSHA Occupational Noise Exposure Standard

                        Letter of Interpretation dated April 14, 1987

How many of you have kids that listen to their music, games, television using headphones or new-fangled earbuds? And they can’t hear you yelling at them when you’re standing right next to them. Or, you see folks commuting to work wearing headphones to drown out the rest of the world? Well OSHA requires employers to make hearing protection available when a worker’s 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA) noise exposure is 85 decibels or higher (and mandate its use at 90 decibels). Furthermore, the employer is always fighting with the worker to use personal protective equipment (PPE) so why not just let them wear the earbuds or headphones?

As the employer, you must evaluate your workplace for hazards and ensure you are protecting your workers from what was identified, in this case, noise. Next, if you can’t eliminate the hazard, you can use PPE. However, you also need to ensure the PPE will adequately protect the worker. Although the earbuds or other headphones may appear to reduce the noise level, check to see if the manufacturer tested them and consequently gives a noise reduction rating (NRR) based on the EPA’s methodology for evaluating hearing protection. I bet the manufacturer does not provide an NRR. Therefore, you have no way to know how much protection the earbuds provide.  Even most of the commercially available noise-canceling headphones do not have an NRR on them so are not considered hearing protection.

Lastly, the earbuds become a source of noise (e.g., music) directly into the worker’s ears which is entirely unregulated, uncontrolled, and ultimately, unknown by the employer. So, although OSHA does not have a regulation that forbids the use of headphones in the workplace, if you evaluate your work environment and their use could present a hazard (i.e., impeding communication, warning signals, etc.) then you as the employer must regulate their use.

So, the bottom line, you can permit music in your workplace, however, use a radio with speakers so that you can monitor and control the amount of sound produced.

Hope this was helpful and thanks for reading my Safety Tidbits! Comments and questions are always welcome. ~ Bryan

P.S. If you have an interesting safety or health question please let me know.