Q&A on Workplace Safety and Health
Click here to read a Q&A on workplace safety and health issues that appeared recently in Employment Law 360.
CDC Releases New Guidance on Flu Preparedness
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anticipating a spread of the H1N1 flu, has released new guidelines to help businesses and employers prepare now for the impact seasonal and H1N1 flu could have on employers, employees, and operations.
The guidelines urge employers to work with employees to develop and implement plans that can reduce the spread of flu. They push for the preparation of plans that address such points as encouraging employees with flu-like symptoms to stay home, operating with reduced staffing and, where feasible, having employees who are at higher risk of serious medical complications from infection work from home.
Employers also might cancel non-essential face-to-face meetings and travel, and space employees farther apart in the workplace, the guidelines say.
The guidelines provide a list of “Actions Employers Should Take Now,” including:
- Review or establish a flexible influenza pandemic plan and involve employees in developing and reviewing the plan;
- Conduct a focused discussion or exercise using the plan, to find out ahead of time whether the plan has gaps or problems that need to be corrected before flu season;
- Have an understanding of normal seasonal absenteeism rates and know how to monitor personnel for any unusual increases in absenteeism through the fall and winter;
- Allow sick workers to stay home without fear of losing their jobs;
- Develop other flexible leave policies to allow workers to stay home to care for sick family members or for children if schools dismiss students or child care programs close; and
- Share your influenza pandemic plan with employees and explain what human resources policies, workplace and leave flexibilities, and pay and benefits will be available to them.
We will keep you apprised of other developments as the fall flu season approaches.
A special thanks to Mei Fung So of Jackson Lewis who prepared this blog post.
OSHA Targeting Chemical Facilities in New National Emphasis Program
OSHA has announced a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) to focus enforcement resources on process safety management (PSM) hazards in chemical facilities across the country. Chemical facilities with PSM-covered processes should review their programs now to ensure full compliance with OSHA standards.
The NEP, effective July 27, 2009, is billed as a “new approach for inspecting PSM covered facilities” and “allows for a greater number of inspections by better allocation of OSHA’s resources.” Chemical facilities in the Northeast (OSHA’s Region 1), the Plains States (OSHA’s Region VII), and the Northwest and Alaska (OSHA’s Region X) will be subject to programmed inspections under the NEP. The NEP will apply to unprogrammed inspections for PSM-covered processes OSHA-wide.
In its instructions to compliance officers regarding the scope of inspections, OSHA emphasizes implementation of the PSM standard over documentation:
Based on past inspection history at refineries and large chemical plants, OSHA has found that employers may have an extensive written process safety management program, but insufficient program implementation. Therefore, CSHOs should verify the implementation of PSM elements to ensure that the employer’s actual program is consistent with their written program.
Compliance officers also are instructed at the start of inspections to request numerous documents from employers, some of which are not required to be kept under the standard (e.g., a list of all PSM-covered process/units in the complex, a summary description of the facility’s PSM program, safe upper and lower operating limits for certain covered units). According to OSHA, however, they represent “documents typically compiled by employers with PSM-covered processes at their facilities.” Furthermore, OSHA will examine under the NEP all contractors – including construction contractors – working on or adjacent to PSM-covered units being inspected.
This is just the first of several key NEPs OSHA will be releasing. OSHA’s Recordkeeping NEP should be released within days, and other NEPs on Food Flavorings, Oil and Gas Well Drilling, Primary Metals, and Hexavalent Chromium are in the works.
We will continue to keep you apprised of all of OSHA’s enforcement initiatives.
