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A Visit From Your Friendly
OSHA Inspector by Joe Wheeler You get the call every contractor dreads. Your supervisor is standing next to an OSHA inspector who wants to walk the site. The inspector has got his camera out and a citation pad ready to go. What do you do? The proper response to a visit by OSHA enforcement personnel was the subject of a training class held in February for members of Nevada Contractors Insurance. "OSHA Regulatory Events" covered the correct response to an OSHA visit, including what to have ready for the inspector, how the process works, and what to expect afterwards. Brian Exedine taught much of the class. Exedine is a safety and loss control consultant for Risk Services-Nevada, who provides safety services for Nevada Contractors Insurance. NCI is Nevada’s second largest workers’ compensation insurer with more than 650 insureds. "Some of our contractors have never had an OSHA inspection before, and we want them to know what to expect," Exedine said. "We want to inform them what could happen, and what should happen, on an enforcement visit." Some of what OSHA might want to see on the job site is your safety programs, HAZCOM materials, your OSHA 200 or 300 log, and proof that you’re doing new hire and employee safety training. Exedine said it is not a good idea to go into such a situation unfamiliar with the process. The first step is knowing your rights under the law. Surprisingly, that includes the right to say "No" to an inspection. Yet that is not a word to be used lightly. "You have rights of refusal or denial. You’re well within your rights to say, ‘You can’t come in here.’ But they have subsequent rights as well," he said. Stopping OSHA at the door is not a recommended action. In the end, it does nothing but create a new set of problems. Exedine said that, "OSHA can request, and will get, a court order (to enter the site) and they’ll come back. Oftentimes they’ll come back with a law enforcement presence to make sure they’re not interfered with." Now the inspection happens, but with a police officer in tow. And you’ve just created an adversarial relationship with OSHA that didn’t have to be there. The smarter thing to do is have representation. Exedine said that contractors can ask an inspector to wait until your representative arrives. For contractors with Nevada Contractors Insurance, that representative could be Exedine and his people. "If a company is part of Nevada Contractors Insurance, the first thing is they should do is call Risk Services-Nevada," Exedine said. "One of the safety and loss consultants can go out there and represent them and make sure they’re treated fairly. We want them to call us so we can give them the representation they need," he said. What happens during the actual inspection depends largely on how you respond to the situation. Inspectors rarely hit a site in which they find nothing to note. Yet all too often, a contractor’s attitude can make the difference in how many citations are written and the dollar amount of the proposed fines. It pays to be calm, helpful, and polite. "The best thing you can do is listen to the inspector, and try to go through the process without panic," Exedine said. "If they’ve got situations that need abating, that is not the time for argument. You want to try to abate any situations or issues that OSHA has." Fix the problem, whatever it is. Exedine said that the worst thing to do is to argue with the inspector over safety issues or the nature of hazards. "During the inspection, there’s no point in argument. It’s not the time for it, and it’s not going to do you any good," Exedine said. "The inspector has the right to note what he believes are violative conditions and hazards." Sometime after the inspection, your company will be notified by mail if any citations were written. That kicks the process into the second stage. "When the citation comes out, you have 15 working days to respond to that citation. That’s called a contest," Jeff Kranitsky is Risk Services-Nevada’s manufacturing and industrial safety expert. He said that the "contest" period is when you can argue if you feel the citation was incorrect. If something was written up that you really don’t agree with, Kranitsky said you should, "Prepare your defenses to fight the citation if you believe you’ve been wrongfully cited. Now, if you haven’t been wrongfully cited, that’s something else. We’ll go to an informal hearing and take care of it." That usually begins by demonstrating that the violations have been abated, and explaining any circumstances that affect the situation. If the informal hearing fails to reach some kind of accord, you have the right to go on to what’s called a "post-contest." This puts you in line to have your case heard before the review board. Most citations don’t go that far. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it won’t go to a review board," Kranitsky said. "Normally you wouldn’t go to the review board unless the citation is a real iffy one, or in the gray area. I highly recommend that if you can handle it at the informal, that you do so. That’s your better option." Perhaps the most important thing during this period is to abate any hazards on the site. If OSHA cites you for a specific hazard, it’s your responsibility to make sure that you get rid of that hazard. You don’t want any additional employees being subject to any of the hazards cited during the inspection. |
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