Safety Codes and
Standards
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.
For
a printable version of the ANSI standards listed by OSHA, please click
here.
All
products are manufactured to meet or exceed all applicable OSHA and
ANSI standards and are made in the U.S.A.
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