Ihab Saad – The Occupational Safety and Health Act OSH Act

Music. Hello and welcome to another class in construction

safety. Today, we're going to talk about the OSHA act, and we're

going to talk about OSHA in general. How did it start? What is

the mandate of OSHA? What does the code say? What are the main

components of the code, and how to read the code itself from the

published or the printer printed version. So we're going to talk

about the the OSHA Act, which is Public Law number 91 dash 596,

the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 also known as the

William Steiger act. So what is it and how did it start?

The OSHA Act was amended several times by public law 1015 52 on

november 5, 1990 which increased the OSHA penalties. Public Law

1051 98 July 16, 1998

OSHA cannot use citation quotas, consultation program established

and public law. 1052 41 on September 28 1998

which is which place the United States Postal Office under the act

as well,

prior to OSHA, before establishing the OSHA Act, which is the

Occupational Safety and Health Act, which is administered by the

also OSHA occupation, theft, Safety and Health Administration.

There used to be state factory laws, which is every employer,

every factory used to have its own safety laws to protect its its

employees. And then there was the federal legislation, Walsh Healy

act, Construction Safety Act, particular to the construction

industry, workman's compensation, which is a type of insurance to

protect against injuries during work and voluntary programs by

employers. So there was no one common general law that governs

safety aspects on on projects in general and especially on

construction projects.

So some of the reasons for establishing the Occupational

Safety and Health Act failure of existing programs that did not

address all the different hazards and the different risks that the

employees were subject to the state programs were limited. So if

an employer had to work out of state, for example, they would

face different laws. The federal programs were partial. They were

not comprehensive, and there was an increasing number of injuries

and illnesses resulting from work related exposure or work related

accidents.

For example, 14,000 deaths from job related accidents.

Two and a half million workers disabled because of these

accidents. 10 times as many mandates were lost from job

related disabilities as from strikes, labor strikes,

and an estimated total of 300,000 occupational diseases, again, due

to exposure to some some hazards on site, like silica fumes or

asbestos or things like that. So that was one of the OSHA

publications. And as you can see, it's it's old, but that number

unfortunately kept on increasing.

So the purpose of the Act, the occupation, Safety and Health Act,

as it stated on the act itself, is section two, is to ensure that

every working man and woman in the nation is safe and helpful, to

ensure for every working man and woman in the nation safe and

healthful working conditions and to preserve out human resources.

That's the major purpose of the act.

Some definitions, as it appeared on the previous section section

two, employer and employee. So who's the employer and who's the

employee that appears in section three, the employer is the person

engaged in a business, affecting commerce. Who has employees does

not include include the United States, the Federal Government, or

any state or political subdivision of the state. So the federal

government is exempt from the occupation, Safety and Health Act,

and so are the state governments and so on. An employee is an of an

employer. An employee is an employee of an employer having a

business which affects commerce. So anyone working for an employer

that qualifies as an employer in the first part of the Section

three is considered an employee.

What is the applicability of the Act or the jurisdiction of the act

that appears in Section four, section 4b one says that the

occupation Safety and Health Act does not apply to employees where

other federal or state agencies exercise authority over

Occupational Safety and Health. So if there are other organizations

or other regulations that.

The safety and health of these employees, then the OSHA Act does

not apply

the duties in Section five, and the most important part of these

of this section is what's called the general duty clause, which is

Section Five. A one. The OSHA Act has the general duty clause. Each

employer must furnish a place of employment free from recognized

hazard. That's the general duty of every employer, and under this

clause, so many employers are cited or are penalized because

they do not provide an employment place free from recognized

hazards. Section five a two says that each employer must comply

with OSHA standards, and Section 5b

says that each employee must comply with OSHA standards and all

applicable rules and regulations. So it's a dual responsibility

between the employer and the employee. The employer has to

provide a place of work that's free from any hazards, and the

employee also has to to comply with the the law and with the

directives of the employer to maintain that workplace safe from

any hazards or risks,

unnecessary risks, of course, are mysterious, the occupation, safety

and health standards, Section six, Section six A says OSHA has

authority to promulgate standards so they become law. Section 6b

procedures by which OSHA promulgates standards. How is that

going to be done? Section 6c OSHA can provide emergency, temporary

standards if employees are exposed to grave danger. So if, for

example, there's a new kind of hazard that was not recognized

before, and we see it on a certain project or a certain construction

site, OSHA, in this case, can provide some emergency measures to

prevent this hazard from occurring until a law or until a an

amendment to the law is added in future revisions or versions of

that law, Section 6d the employers can apply for a variance from a

standard if, for example, they can see that applying the OSHA Act or

the the regulations According to OSHA is going to result into more

hazards to the employers than not applying the laws. Then they can

ask for a variance from that standard, and we are going to see

some examples to that. When we address, for example, overhand

bricklaying on scaffolds and things like that, we are going to

see some of the examples of these variances. So

the advisory committees and the administration. Section seven.

Section seven a establishes the National Advisory Committee on

occupational safety and health, which advises the Secretary of

Labor. Section 7b the secretary can appoint the committee to

assist him in his standard setting functions. Section 7c the

Secretary is authorized to use the personnel of any federal or state

agency or consultants to help carry out his responsibilities. So

that's very important. For example, the police force can be

used by OSHA to enforce some of the aspects of that law. This is

not reporting to the secretary of labor or health and human

services, but again, that's a federal or state agency that can

help in implementing the law,

inspections, investigations and record keeping under Section

eight, section eight A says that OSHA representatives are

authorized to which are called the compliance officers or the

inspectors, are authorized to enter without delay at reasonable

times during work hours in general, and inspect during

regular work hours and at other reasonable Times and to question

privately employers and employees.

So

if, what if they are denied entry? What if they try to come to a

construction site to investigate a report or a complaint or to check

for an accident or something like that, and they are denied entry?

They have the right to require to get a warrant, and in this case,

preventing them from entering would be a crime.

Section 8b says OSHA may require the production of evidence under

oath subpoena power, especially in case of testimony in courts and

investigations. Section 8c employers must keep records

relating to the act, as we're going to see later on, what kind

of reports and what kind of records need to be filed and need

to be kept on site. We're going to learn about these in the future.

Section 8f, any employee who believes a violation exists or

that imminent danger exists may request an inspection, and as

we're going to see later on, as.

The levels of inspection and the emergency of these inspections at

the top or near the top is going to be something called imminent

danger. If there's a complaint from an employee or even someone

out of the scope of the construction project, if you are a

passerby and you see some conditions that are really

dangerous, that might result in an accident or an incident, you can

contact OSHA, and they will respond immediately to prevent

such accidents from happening. This comes close to the top of

their priorities on inspections,

citations, if there's a violation section nine, A, if employer has

violated section five, which is the general duty clause that we

talked about, of the Act, or any standard rule or order related to

Section six of the act, citation shall which means must be issued.

Each citation shall be in writing, so that it's not verbal. It's

going to be documented in writing describe particular violation with

reference to act standard drone regulation or order. We're going

to see by the end of this lecture how it's referred to in the code.

So it's going to mention the clause that the employer did not

comply to, and that's why they're going to be cited for that

violation, and a time to fix the the reasonable abatement period to

fix the problem, so that you're going to be given if someone is

cited under this section, they're going to be given a certain period

of time to fix that problem, and they're not going to be allowed to

work in that area until that issue has been fixed.

Section 9b citations must be posted at or near the place the

violation occurred, so that everyone working in that area

would know there has been a violation and they would pay

attention not to repeat that violation. Site section 9c

citations must be issued within six months following the

violation. If there's an inspection and the compliance

officer or the inspector comes and they cite a violation. If you do

not receive a written citation within six months, then it's gone.

They have to give you a written citation within six months from

the documentation of or the first observance of that violation.

The procedure for enforcement is under Section 10. Section 10 A

says citations go to the employer via certified mail or in person,

so that they can claim that it was lost, I didn't receive it. The

employer has 15 working days to contest if you have an objection

to that citation, you have to contest it within 15 days. Again,

beyond 15 days, there's no right to contest it. Section 10 C says

any employee may contest the abatement date in the citation if

you feel that the date that was given to fix the problem is too

short, you cannot fix it within that time. You can contest that

and ask for an extension, but again, within the 15 days,

the judicial review section 11 section 11 A says any person

adversely affected by a commission order given under Section 10 C may

appeal to any United States Court of Appeals, and section 11 C says

it prohibits discrimination against employees fighting

complaints under OSHA, which is the Whistleblower Act. If, for

example, I'm an employee, I see something unsafe being done on

site, and I report that to OSHA, I need to be protected from being

fired or being discriminated against because of whistleblowing.

I Lee,

the Review Commission under Section 12. Section 12 a

establishes the Occupational Safety and Health Review

Commission, OSHA RC. The OSHA RC review is contested citations and

acts independently of OSHA, so OSHA is not the judge and the jury

at the same time. If you are contesting a citation, another

body is going to review that

that citation and give another look at it.

The procedures to counteract imminent dangers under Section 13,

Section 13 a allows OSHA to petition the United States this

record to issue restraining orders in case of imminent danger. Again,

imminent danger means that something is very close to cause a

major accident or incident on site. For example, if you are

excavating and the sides of the excavation are not properly sloped

or short, which can cause a cave in which can kill employees, this

is called imminent danger. It has not caused any accidents yet, but

it's very close to causing such accidents. Then in this case, OSHA

can petition the United States district court to issue a

restraining order preventing anyone from approaching that site

until the problem is fixed.

Representation is civility.

Is under Section 14, the Secretary is represented by the solicitor of

labor. Secretary of Labor in this case is represented by the

solicitor of labor for any civil litigation brought under the Act

Section 15, what if the OSHA inspector or the compliance

officer visits the construction site and the contractor has a

proprietary method of construction. They're using

technique that's not known to anyone else. That's the secret of

their trade now, in this case, the the compliance officer, officer or

OSHA inspector, has to use confidentiality. They cannot

propagate that information to anyone else. So OSHA handles trade

secrets as confidential procedures for handling trade secrets are in

the field inspection reference manual that is given to every

compliance officer or inspector so they know exactly what are the

levels and the limits of that confidentiality.

Now the final thing is penalties. Now under Section 17, and as we're

going to learn later on, there are different levels of penalties

under the citations. So we have something called a willful or

repeat violation, if you have been cited before and you are cited

again for the same citation. Now this is a repeat violation, and

OSHA is very strict for each and every citation or person exposed

to that hazard you're gonna be you can be fined a minimum of $5,000

and a maximum of $70,000

now imagine repeat violation or willful something intentional,

willful violation. You have five employees exposed to that hazard,

you can pay up to five times 70,000 so that's $350,000

which is not small change for a serious violation, a maximum of

$7,000

again, per person exposed to that violation, a Not serious

violation. Again, the maximum is 7000 failure to correct. You were

cited. You were given an abatement period, and you failed to you did

not contest it, and you failed to correct within that period. Again,

there is a citation up to $7,000

per individual exposed willful Now, if that death occurs the

first time, a maximum of $10,000 plus six months prison. So it's

not only a financial penalty, there's also prison time for the

second time. Of course, I can't imagine a contractor being that

negligent, but it happens, is going to be $20,000 maximum, plus

one year in prison. Uh,

uh, if you give advance notice,

if a someone gives advanced notice from OSHA gives advanced notice

about an inspection, then there's a penalty of $1,000 plus six

months prison.

If someone makes a false statement a maximum of $10,000 plus six

months prison and failure to post the violations. If you have been

cited, as we mentioned, you have to post this the citation for a

certain period of time in a place close to where the citation

occurred or the violation occurred. Failure to post the

violation can result in a penalty of a maximum of $7,000

and all of these, there's a the law, the Public Law 101, dash,

552, increase these penalties. We're going to talk about these

when we talk about, in detail about citations and violation.

This is a general introduction to the Occupational Safety and Health

Act and the administration of that act. We are going to discuss some

other details of that act as they apply to different parts of

construction later on, I'll see you in another lecture.