INDIANAPOLIS - The mission of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is to save lives, prevent injuries and protect the health of America's workers. So you might say the mission of Steven Stastny’s “OSHA Update: What You Need To Know” session Sun., Nov. 5, 2000, at the Green Industry Conference (GIC) was to guide the lawn and landscape contractors in attendance at his session in meeting OSHA’s mission by saving lives, preventing injuries and protecting the health of their own employees.
As part of the Professional Lawn Care Association of America’s (PLCAA) GIC sessions, Stastny, who litigates high risk workers’ compensation claims for Lehr Middlebrooks Price & Procter, P.C., Birmingham, Ala., presented a variety of OSHA issues that can arise from surprise audits.
According to Stastny, different regulations apply to business depending on the practices a contractor is doing, such as maintenance vs. design/build. Therefore, he took a look at general industry standards that may affect a lawn and landscape company if and when OSHA inspectors investigate for safety infractions. One such potential infraction deals with working in confined spaces, as in when an employee services the agitator in the bottom of a spray tank. Stastny said OSHA regulations require items like air sampling before entering the tank and having qualified rescue folks monitoring the employee to be on hand for rescue it he or she is overtaken by fumes in the tank. If these and other safety regulations are not adhered to, the company will be liable for penalties from OSHA for any and all infractions.
OSHA inspections are usually a surprise to a business owner, but they may not be a surprise to certain other parties. Stastny explained that an OSHA inspector could perform a safety audit simply by noticing an infraction while passing by a business or contractor out in the field. Other reasons inspectors may show up at a company’s door include complaints registered from third parties, word of mouth mentions of infractions and written complaints. With written complaints, Stastny explained that a length of time often passes from the time the complaint is registered until it actually gets investigated, but OSHA is required to investigate all written claims. Sometimes, Stastny said, disgruntled employees may place a complaint. Those actions can bog down the OSHA process, so the organization has a system to weed these complaints - called Phone and Fax complaints - out and ignore claims if they are not legitimate. In most cases for potentially legitimate claims, Stastny said a company could easily handle the claims by simply proving compliance.
When OSHA issues a citation, Stastny recommended fixing the problem quickly and making sure it does not happen again. “If someone identifies a hazard and you don’t fix it, you have knowledge of the infraction,” he said. Therefore, documentation exists that the business owner knows of the infraction and any noncompliance after notification is cause for large penalties.
A session attendee brought up a question about whether or not a company can deny OSHA inspectors access to investigate without a warrant. Stastny explained that an owner can require OSHA to provide a warrant, but he advised against sending them off to get one. His reasoning is that inspectors can easily get a warrant by phoning the Department of Labor who will issue approval to OSHA to obtain a warrant, provided reasonable cause is determined. With the approval, OSHA can then get a warrant from a local magistrate. “The whole process could take only an hour, and that’s not enough time to get your facility compliant,” he explained. Additionally, he said the inspector is going to be aggravated by having to go to the trouble of obtaining a warrant, and might take that aggravation out on the facility by doing a wall-to-wall inspection, whether it is entirely warranted or not.
TRAINING FOR THE BILINGUAL WORKFORCE. Several session attendees also raised questions about training non-English-speaking employees. This is a key issue for the industry with the growing number of Hispanic workers that work in the country via temporary visas distributed by the government’s H2B program.
To fulfill the requirements of training non-English-speaking employees, Stastny said, “You need to deliver it in an understandable format to your target audience.” For that reason, he said most suppliers of training materials, such as videos and worksheets, have Spanish versions of these materials. Certain other languages are also available, depending on the suppler.
A potential problem one attendee might run into is supplying appropriate training information as he has a French-speaking employee and an employee from Equatorial Guinea. Stastny said, “My heart goes out to you,” in reference to the potential problems that business owner may run into in meeting training requirements. He did explain that those types of abnormal circumstances can usually be handled by taking the appropriate means as best as possible to train those individuals. “I think as long as you act reasonably with videos and hands-on demonstration, you should be able to meet requirements as best as possible,” he explained.
Another item related to the language requirements is the fact that OSHA employs a diverse workforce as well. “The prevalence of Spanish speaking OSHA inspectors is very high. Part of that is due to their diversity initiatives, and part of it is an absolute necessity in enforcing the act,” he said. Therefore, it is especially important to document all bilingual training tools and sessions.
Bilingual training requirements can also be met by utilizing a qualified bilingual trainer, according to Stastny. That trainer could be a bilingual foreman, for example. Stastny recommended that those trainers go through some kind of a qualification program, such as a “Train The Trainer” program. “If you do that, you have a slam dunk. He’s qualified to train,” he said. He also recommended that any trainers, bilingual or otherwise, should keep up with requalification by attending programs yearly.
For more information about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration visit its web site at www.osha.gov. Stastny said OSHA has several written programs online to help companies with setting up safety programs.
For more information about the Professional Lawn Care Association of America visit its web site at www.plcaa.org.
The author is Internet Editor of Lawn & Landscape Online.