Some useful OSHA links
Federal OSHA page This page contains links to standards, interpretations, compliance assistance and various software advisors. It also contains a link to a page identifying which states operate state plans. States may, at their option, adopt and enforce their own standards. Federal OSHA requires that state plans be at least as comprehensive and thorough as Federal OSHA regulations, and states may go beyond the federal regulations or develop additional regulations as needed for industries in their states.
OSHA's Safety & Health Statistics Home Page
This is an especially useful page for benchmarking safety performance of one's company against one's industry. It also has the records of OSHA's inspection activity by employer, by industry, and by standard.
OSHA's "Rules of Construction" address the safety responsibilities of prime and sub-contractors on multi-employer worksites.
A key question we are sometimes asked is Does the rescission of the OSHA Ergonomics Rule mean that OSHA lacks a basis to cite employers for ergonomic hazards in the workplace? In the absence of a specific standard for citing ergonomics hazards, OSHA may still cite employers for ergonomic hazards under the. "General Duty" clause. In order to be able to cite employers for ergonomic hazards or any hazard under the Act, OSHA must show that the following four conditions are met (See this OSHRC Decision )
A condition or activity in the employer's workplace presents a hazard to employees,
The cited employer or the employer's industry recognizes the hazard,
The hazard is causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm, and
Feasible means exist to eliminate or materially reduce the hazard.
And how does OSHRC interpret these requirements for ergonomic hazards? Two key decisions which govern whether a “General Duty” citation for ergonomic hazards will be upheld are the Pepperidge Farms Decision and the Beverly Enterprises Decision. The key sticking point that OSHRC noted with respect to these decisions was how much mitigation of the ergonomic hazard was adequate to not be in violation. The decisions basically grant OSHA the authority to require an employer to engage in an "abatement process, the goal of which is to determine what action or combination of actions will eliminate or materially reduce the hazard, but in order to sustain the 5(a)(1) citation, OSHA must establish that the abatement process that the employer conducts is inadequate." OSHA has cited employers for ergonomic hazards, but the citations appear to be concentrated in a few specific offices. You can click over the OSHA site and search for “General Duty” clause citations. “ergonomics” in the Query field. OSHA maintains a list of industry-specific and task-specific interventions. While OSHA says that deviation from these ergonomics guidelines will not necessarily be considered evidence of a violation, there was an increase in inspections and citations of nursing homes following the issuance of ergonomics guidelines for nursing homes. If OSHA has issued guidelines for your industry, it would be prudent to attempt to incorporate their suggested practices.
As a helpful aid for your ergonomics effort, you may wish to download this calculator for the NIOSH Lifting Equation Guidelines written by one of J.P. Purswell"s students at Colorado State University in Pueblo. It does require that you have installed some Visual Basic run time routines on your PC.
California, which has a state plan, has adopted a repetitive motion standard, also known as the Cal-OSHA ergonomics standard This page contains both the text of the standard and a brief history on how it has been implemented and litigated.