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

OSHA's "Rules of Construction" address the safety responsibilities of prime and sub-contractors on multi-employer worksites.

The OSHA Ergonomics page

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 of the OSHAct 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 General Dynamics Land Systems Div., Inc., 15 BNA OSHC 1275, 1280, 1991-93 CCH OSHD ¶ 29,467 No. 83-1293, 1991 for details)

1. A condition or activity in the employer's workplace presents a hazard to employees,
2. The cited employer or the employer's industry recognizes the hazard,
3. The hazard is causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm, and
4. 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 not been actively citing employers for ergonomic hazards, but it has been compiling industry-specific and task-specific interventions which may be used at some future point to support a “general duty clause” violation for ergonomic hazards

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 the University of Southern Colorado. It does require that you have installed some Visual Basic run time routines on your PC. This particular NIOSH calculator handles only the single-task case. Komkrit Chansongsang, the author of the program, is working on a program to handle to multiple lifting task case. Remember to click the “calculate” button when you have completed your data entry.

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.

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