The Connecticut Fire Academy holds a week of classes every year called ‘June School’. This year I had a day off, and decided to attend their OSHA mandates class. I have to say it was one of the most enlightening, and frightening classes I have ever attended.
The class was held at the CFA and taught by CONN-OSHA. OSHA is the Occupation Health and Safety Administration. While sitting through this four our session, I realized that the information was definitely important to my readers. Some places may consider OSHA to be a ‘bad four letter word’, but we need to deal with them anyway. Many states have a state OSHA office, with state regulations, but most of them have guidelines similar to the federal guidelines, so your mileage may vary.
The first thing that was surprising to me is that most offices have two parts, compliance and consulting. We often think of OSHA as the bad guys who come down on us with fines, but they have a whole other side to them.
To understand OSHA, its regulations, and its needs, you need to understand its mission. Their objective is to “Identify and eliminate existing or potential workplace hazards”. OSHA was established to set minimum guidelines for safety. OSHA guidelines are meant to be minimums that everyone should meet or exceed.
The problem with OSHA regulations is that all too often each member of the department thinks they know what OSHA requires. The truth is, many of the “OSHA says” comments are false or not complete. The consulting arm of OSHA is there to help us understand and comply with their regulations. We all know we could use the help.
The consultancy arm of OSHA is a free service that is a voluntary way to bring OSHA into your fire department. As I wrote the last sentence I realized it sounds like a scary statement, but we shouldn’t be scared of OSHA. The consultancy side is completely separate from the compliance arm. They do not come with fine books in hand, and as a matter of fact, they do not even have fine books.
You can bring a consultant in at no charge to look at your entire fire department or just one area. For example, if you want to have your training program evaluated, they will come in and look at it, and only at your training program. You can even just call them in for one area, such as your respiratory program.
The consultation program is free, has no monetary penalties, and no citations. As a matter of fact, bringing the consultation arm in can save you a visit from the compliance officer.
OSHA’s compliancy arm is the one we are all afraid of, and the one we think of as a four lettered word. Compliancy is the group with the fine books, monetary penalties, and is charged with enforcing the regulations. There are multiple reasons why they could come knocking on our doors.
The first reason is what they call ‘programmed’ inspections. Programmed inspections are random inspections selected by their computer. This is where working with consulting can help. If they see that you have brought a consultant in recently, they may overlook your programmed inspection.
The second reason why they come in is when they get a complaint. One of your firefighters, the town, or even members of the public can make a complaint. An interesting point is that they are seeing a large number of complaints filed by other services such as police and EMS. They may also file a complaint based upon media coverage. Remember that when the press is taking pictures, you don’t want to be caught with your firefighters doing something wrong, or not wearing their PPE.
The last reason for a visit is if there is a fatality or multiple injuries. They consider multiple injuries to be 3 or more firefighters who are admitted to the hospital. When there is a fatality or multiple injuries, we are required to report it to OSHA within 8 hours. We should expect a review shortly after.
So what exactly is an OSHA review? The OSHA review has three parts; the opening conference, the walk around, and the closing conference. The opening conference lays out the ground rules, what they are investigating, and how it will be done. They will require that the Chief or responsible party is available, along with any records you may have.
My first question to the OSHA rep was what if the Chief isn’t available? We all know that volunteers have other jobs, and the Chief may or may not be available at a moments notice. Their answer was that they could wait a couple hours, maybe a day, but otherwise, its tough luck. This may sound harsh, but if they are there to investigate, they need to do it in a timely manner.
Besides providing them with someone in charge, they also have to have access to other personnel, all written programs and records, and to all physical locations and equipment. In other words, you must open your doors and file cabinets to them and cannot ‘hide’ things.
The next step is a ‘walk around’ where they get to wander through the department, look at equipment, and the facilities in general. This includes trip hazards, MSDS sheets, floor loading, etc. The difference between compliancy and consultancy is that once compliancy comes in, they can look at ANYTHING.
The final step is the closing conference. This is when they will present what was found, and any fines they may levy. This includes a written report, and timelines for compliance. The fines aren’t ‘huge’, but they can be thousands of dollars.
Now that we have gone over the process, next week we will look at the specifics they are looking for during the process. Some of it will scare you, some of it will surprise you, and other points are just good common sense.