Signaling its renewed focus on regulatory means to address occupational hazards, OSHA is pursuing comprehensive rulemaking to prevent combustible dust explosions. The Agency announced it will be issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) and convening stakeholder meetings to evaluate approaches to regulating combustible dust. Employers with combustible dust hazards in their worksites are encouraged to participate in the rulemaking process.

Combustible dusts are solids ground into fine particles, which can cause a fire or explosion when suspended in air under certain circumstances. Common examples of combustible dusts include metal (aluminum and magnesium), wood, plastic, rubber, coal, flour, sugar, and paper, among others. OSHA has identified a number of industries with combustible dust hazards, including agriculture, chemicals, food, grain, plastics, wood, paper, textiles, pharmaceuticals, tire and rubber manufacturing, and metal processing. While certain OSHA standards provide some protection against combustible dust, for example, Housekeeping (29 CFR 1910.22) and Electrical Equipment in Hazardous Locations (29 CFR 1910.307), OSHA does not have a single comprehensive rule to protect employees from combustible dust explosions.

OSHA’s announcement was expected. Over the last several years, the Agency has published non-mandatory guidance on combustible dust hazards and the prevention of combustible dust explosions. Furthermore, there has been significant congressional interest in the issue. In the last Congress, the House of Representatives passed a bill to force OSHA to issue an interim and final combustible dust standard within 3 and 18 months, respectively. On February 4 of this year, Representatives George Miller, Lynn Woolsey, and John Barrow re-introduced this bill.

Secretary of Labor Solis, in announcing the combustible dust rulemaking, stated that “OSHA is reinvigorating the regulatory process to ensure workers receive the protection they need while also ensuring that employers have the tools needed to make their workplaces safer.” Employers must remain alert to OSHA’s regulatory initiatives and participate in the rulemaking process.

In a new letter of interpretation, OSHA has confirmed that injuries to employees sustained at off-site team-building events are recordable on OSHA logs, so long as the injuries also meet other general recording criteria (such as requiring medical treatment beyond first aid). Employers are encouraged to review their recordkeeping practices to ensure that they are complying with this interpretation of OSHA’s recordkeeping rule.

OSHA was asked whether an injury incurred while an employee was go-cart racing at an off-site team-building activity was “work-related” under OSHA’s rule. In the scenario presented to OSHA, employees were not required to participate in the go-cart racing or other team building events. However, they were required to attend an off-site meeting and luncheon. In OSHA’s view, the employee was at the go-cart facility as a condition of employment and thus was “in the work environment.” Any injury or illness that arises is therefore presumed to be work-related in the view of the Agency.

Employers often hold team-building events at locations outside the workplace. If injuries occur during these events, employers must record them on their OSHA logs, assuming the injuries meet other recordability criteria.

With OSHA developing a National Emphasis Program on recordkeeping, now is the time for employers to review their recordkeeping procedures and logs to ensure they are fully compliant.
 

Signaling its renewed focus on enforcement, OSHA has announced it is developing six new National Emphasis Programs (NEPs). NEPs focus OSHA’s resources on industries, hazards, and occupational injuries and illnesses that need additional targeted enforcement, in the Agency’s view.

OSHA’s Director of Enforcement Programs revealed the following industry-specific NEPs are in development:

 

  • Chemical plants – process safety management;
  • Primary metals;
  • Flavorings and diacetyl; and
  • Oil and gas well drilling.

Employers in these industries should expect additional inspections and take steps now to ensure their safety and health practices are fully compliant with OSHA requirements.

 

Even more employers, however, can anticipate increased scrutiny on account of OSHA’s recordkeeping initiative. As a result of questions raised by Congress and labor organizations that injuries and illnesses are underreported, OSHA announced it is developing a recordkeeping NEP. All employers who are required to keep OSHA injury and illness logs should review them now for accuracy, completeness, and appropriate certification.

 

Finally, OSHA is developing an NEP dealing with occupational asthma, a growing area of concern for OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

 

In a recent speech, newly confirmed Secretary of Labor Solis committed OSHA to increased enforcement. These NEPs will drive much of that enforcement in coming months. 

In a recent letter of interpretation addressing a common issue at worksites around the country, OSHA confirmed that injuries to employees sustained at the worksite as a result of “horseplay” are recordable on OSHA Logs, so long as the injuries also meet other general recording criteria (such as requiring medical treatment beyond first aid).

The interpretation stems from an incident described as “horseplay gone badly.” At the end of a work day, two supervisors got into a physical confrontation while changing to go home. One supervisor pulled a knife and stuck the other in the arm, resulting in several sutures.

OSHA stated that the injury was recordable. First, because the injury resulted from an event occurring in the work environment, it was presumed to be work-related and none of the exceptions to this “geographic presumption” applied. The exceptions include, among other things, injuries such as those resulting from an employee eating, drinking, or preparing food for personal consumption, those involving signs or symptoms that surface at work but result solely from a non-work-related event, and those caused by a motor vehicle accident occurring on a company parking lot while the employee is commuting to or from work. Second, because the injury required medical treatment beyond first aid, OSHA concluded that it satisfied the other recordability criteria related to severity.

OSHA dismissed as essentially irrelevant the issue of whether the injury resulted from activities that were “not directly productive” to the employer’s work. OSHA also reiterated that there is no general exception under the recordkeeping rule for violence that occurs at the worksite.

Situations such as this are all too common in the workplace. Aside from taking steps to address violence in the workplace generally, employers must ensure that when an incident occurs and injury results, it is properly recorded under OSHA’s rules, if warranted.