Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

What Is OSHA?

OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration and is a division of the US Department of Labor. This government agency was put in place to ensure healthy and safe workplaces for employees in the private and public sectors.

OSHA is responsible for setting and enforcing its national safety standards and overseeing state-based programs. The agency is also responsible for enforcing anti-retaliation and whistleblower protection laws related to workplace safety reporting.

What Is the Purpose of OSHA?

OSHA was established in 1970 by then-president Richard Nixon to ensure that all employees across the country were granted the right to a safe workplace. Since then, the answer to the question “What is OSHA’s purpose?” has evolved significantly.

Ultimately, OSHA’s goal is to reduce workplace hazards and fatalities. The main route the agency takes to achieve this is developing and enforcing safety standards. However, OSHA handles more than just compliance enforcement.

OSHA also provides employers with safety training and education to ensure business leaders know how to keep employees out of harm’s way. Additionally, the agency assists employers with regulatory compliance, routinely providing consultation to help resolve hazardous conditions.

Employer Responsibilities Under OSHA

OSHA’s “general duty clause” (found in section 5) states that all covered employers must provide for all employees a workplace that is free from recognized hazards that cause or are likely to cause serious physical harm or death. In accordance with this general rule, OSHA has also outlined other responsibilities employers must take on to comply with federal regulations.

Find and Correct Safety Problems

Employers have a duty to actively look for potential safety hazards that may bring harm to their employees. This can be done through simple observation of workplace practices, but hazards may also be discovered through workplace testing, such as indoor air quality, radiation, noise level, or asbestos testing. Note that employees have a right to receive information about the results of these tests.

If any safety issues are found, OSHA regulations require employers to correct them. Altering working conditions (such as using safer chemicals or installing higher-quality ventilation systems) should always be the first thing an employer does to eliminate hazards.

Display Informational Signage

Like many federal agencies, OSHA requires employers to prominently display signage that informs employees about employer responsibilities and employee rights under the law. OSHA provides a free downloadable poster entitled “Job Safety and Health: It’s the Law!” for all employers. Though the law does not require employers to post the signage in other languages, it is available in 16 additional languages.

Provide Training and Information

OSHA-covered employers must provide employees with information related to chemical hazards and help them avoid bringing harm to themselves by using information sheets, color-coded labels, alarms, and other safety measures. Additionally, employers must take steps to give safety training to all employees in a language they understand.

Provide Protective Gear and Examinations

In addition to safety training, OSHA-covered employers must also help employees avoid potential hazards by providing them with safety equipment. This might be anything from gloves, hard hats, and earplugs to respirators or full-body suits.

In jobs where adequate sensory skills are required to perform the job safely, employers may be required to provide medical testing such as vision and hearing exams. Employees are entitled to receive copies of their workplace medical records.

Make Timely Reports and Keep Accurate Records

If a workplace fatality occurs, an employer must notify OSHA within eight hours. Employers have 24 hours to notify the agency of work-related inpatient hospitalizations, amputations, or eye losses.

All employers must keep records of injuries and illnesses that occur in the workplace, as well as any safety violation citations received, using OSHA Form 300. This data must be posted in a prominent place where employees can see it.

Avoid Workplace Retaliation

All employees covered under OSHA regulations have the right to file an OSHA complaint to have their workplace inspected, participate in an inspection, and speak with an inspector when they are on site. Employers must not retaliate against any employee for exercising these rights.

If an employer does decide to retaliate, employees have a right to file an additional complaint for that retaliation. If that complaint is found to have merit, an employer can be sued by the Secretary of Labor to obtain relief for the employee, such as putting the employee back to work or paying them back for lost wages.

Who Is Not Covered Under OSHA?

A few types of people are universally not covered under OSHA:

• Self-employed individuals
• Business owners without employees
• Non-employees, such as temporary workers and independent contractors
• Volunteers
• Unpaid interns not replacing employees
• Immediate family members of farm employers
• Employees with hazards covered by another federal agency (e.g., the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Energy)

However, OSHA coverage is complex and depends on a number of factors for other types of employees. For example, OSHA does not typically cover those working in state and local government positions. However, these employees might get OSHA coverage if their state has an OSHA-approved state plan.

There are also 21 states and one territory where private employees are not covered under OSHA’s federal regulations. Employees in these jurisdictions would also be covered by OSHA-approved state plans. The following jurisdictions have OSHA-approved plans that cover both private businesses and state/local government employees:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Hawaii
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Nevada
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• New Mexico
• North Carolina
• Oregon
• Puerto Rico
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Vermont
• Virginia
• Washington
• Wyoming

In those jurisdictions where the OSHA-approved plan only covers state and local government employees (including Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands), federal OSHA regulations cover private employees.

What Is an OSHA Violation?

An OSHA violation happens when an employer enacts or allows workplace practices that go against OSHA safety standards, resulting in a potential or actual safety hazard. Whether the employer did this deliberately or unknowingly, it’s still considered a violation.

Though this basic definition seems straightforward, the full answer to the question “What is an OSHA violation?” is often more complex than people think. Violations can fall into six categories:

• Willful: A hazard that the employer is well aware of and has made no serious attempt to correct
• Serious: A hazard highly likely to cause death or serious injury that the employer knew or should have known about
• Other-than-serious: A hazard that impacts job safety and health but is unlikely to cause serious injury or death
• De minimis: A minor hazard with no real impact on employee safety or health but technically goes against OSHA rules
• Failure to abate: A hazard that an employer has previously been cited for but failed to correct
• Repeated: A situation in which similar hazards are found upon re-inspection after a citation has been issued

When an inspector finds evidence of an OSHA violation, the agency may choose to issue a citation or penalty within six months of discovery. Citations usually state which OSHA standard was violated, when it needs to be corrected, and what penalties are proposed.

Penalties can range from $16,131 for less serious violations to hundreds of thousands of dollars for willful or repeated violations. Penalties may be charged per day if an employer fails to correct the violation by the date given on the original citation.

OSHA may reduce penalties for small businesses or for those the agency believes is acting in good faith, but there are no reductions for those suspected of willful violations.

What is the purpose of OSHA’s citations and penalties? OSHA encourages employers to remember that the agency’s ultimate goal is hazard correction and ongoing compliance. Consequently, employers have 15 days to contest a violation. Alternatively, an employer may request an informal meeting with the area director to discuss citations and penalties and try to work out a plan to correct the hazard.