An Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule to enhance protection for 11.7 million workers who need to wear certain safety equipment will be adopted in Utah by reference because the state administers its own OSHA program.
Jay Bagley, administrator of the OSHA program in Utah for the State Industrial Commission, said the rule will be discussed this week during the OSHA Advisory Council meeting.According to a U.S. Department of Labor media release, the rule protects workers who wear safety equipment such as hard hats, face shields, safety glasses, gloves and safety shoes.
Joseph A. Dear, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, said, "This standard updates requirements to reflect the current technology and improvements in personal protective equipment, adds provisions for assessing hazards and employee training and fills significant gaps in protection."
He said the new rule will improve worker acceptance of personal protective equipment by permitting better and more comfortable designs not permitted by current standards.
Dear estimated the new rule will prevent four deaths, save 712,000 lost work days and prevent 65,000 non-lost work-day injury cases annually. He said the savings to society will be $5 billion annually and the savings to employers will be $150 million although training and hazard assessment programs will cost $52.4 million.
Current OSHA standards for head, face, foot and eye protections were adopted by the American National Standards Institute more than 25 years ago. The new standards will be more consistent with today's industry standards, Dear said.
Under the rule, which becomes effective July 5, employers will have to perform a hazard assessment of their workplace to determine if any hazards exist that would require personal protective equipment. The employer then must select appropriate equipment for the hazards found.
Employers also will have to train employees in the use of any protective equipment.
The department also has issued a final rule requiring employers to orally report within eight hours any occupational fatality or catastrophe involving in-patient hospitalization of three or more workers.
The previous deadline of 48 hours allowed written or verbal reporting and covered incidents involving fatalities or hospitalizations of five or more workers.
Don Anderson, technical support officer in Utah's OSHA office, said Utah's rule is more strict but that the federal agency agrees with the language. Utah requires reporting for all serious injuries within 12 hours and defines a serious injury as amputation, broken major bones or hospitalization for anything other than observation.
Anderson said the state requires an employer to investigate all accidents or cause them to be investigated and take appropriate action to correct the problem that caused the accident. The federal rule requires an investigation of a fatality or hospitalization.