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| NOTE:
Standards listed here and referenced on pressroomelectronics.com
are subject to frequent change and revision by their issuing organizations.
Check with OSHA and ANSI for the most recent standards for your
application. |
What does
OSHA Do? from 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.
-
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.
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