PH2120
Occupational Safety & Health Module
Study Guide Answers
1. Why was the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) created?
Congress became concerned with the comprehensive problems of occupational safety and health in the workplace in the late 1960s. President Lyndon Baines Johnson remarked that the 14,000 deaths and 2.2 million injuries occurring on the job was "the shame of a modern industrial nation." Congress passed the OSH Act "to assure so far as possible every working man and women in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources."
According to the OSHA website, "You have a right to a safe and healthful workplace.
That's why Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, requiring employers to provide workplaces free from serious recognized hazards and to comply with occupational safety and health standards. The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) wants every worker to go home whole and healthy every day.
The agency was created by Congress to help protect workers by setting and enforcing workplace safety and health standards and by providing safety and health information, training and assistance to workers and employers"
(http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/worker/index.html).
2. Who is covered by the OSH Act?
• Employees in the private sector are covered by an OSHA regional office under federal OSHA or an OSHA program operated by state governments. Currently twenty-three states operate state OSHA programs covering private sector workers.
Public sector workers in states that have state OSHA programs are covered by those states. State OSHA programs must be at least as effective as the federal program and provide similar protection for workers.
• U.S. Postal Service falls under OSHA's jurisdiction and is treated as a private employer.
• Federal workers are covered by their agencies. By Presidential Executive Order, federal agencies must maintain an effective safety and health program that meets the same standard as private employers.
3. Who is not covered by the OSH Act?
• Self-employed persons
• Farms at which only immediate family members of the farm's family are employed
• Other federal agencies under other federal statutes:
- Mining
- Nuclear Energy
-Transportation (certain sectors)

4.
What is OSHA's authority?
• Issue safety and health standards
• Conduct inspections and investigations, issue citations and impose penalties
• Require employers to keep records pertinent to safety and health
• Petition courts to restrain imminent danger situations
• Approve or reject state programs
5.
What is required of OSHA when rulemaking?
• Assessments of prospective control technologies
• Estimates of the incremental costs to be incurred to achieve compliance
• Examinations of the cost burdens imposed
• Estimates of expected benefits
• Justification for agency intervention into the workings of the marketplace
6. When promulgating (disseminating) rules, what must OSHA provide?
• Reasoned evidence concerning the economic consequences of the standard it issues
• The regulatory benefits anticipated
• The technical feasibility (if necessary) of the required actions by the affected industries
• Petition courts to restrain imminent danger situations
• Approve or reject state programs
7. Why is OHSA one of the most criticized regulatory agencies?
Due to the nature of their mission of establishing and enforcing occupational safety and health regulations, OHSA "invariably pits individuals and groups with strongly held beliefs and vital interests against each other." An example of this is the longstanding friction between Labor and Management that predates OSHA. Further, the debates among labor, industry, outside experts, and various government bodies over the availability of appropriate controls, the adoption of said controls, and the subsequent economic consequences are at the core of the problem.
8. What is NIOSH's mission?
NIOSH was established to help assure "safe and healthful working conditions of working men and women by providing research, education, and training in the field of occupational health and safety." NIOSH employs over 1400 individuals in the areas of epidemiology, medicine, industrial hygiene, safety, psychology, chemistry, engineering, and statistics. NIOSH has no regulatory authority to monitor or evaluate workplaces.

9. What are the key principles in evaluating worker exposure?
• Anticipation: the ability to recognize potential hazards
• Recognition: the acknowledgement of health hazards in the workplace
• Evaluation: the process of examining an operation to determine the extent of health hazards
• Control: the control of health hazards in the workplace to ensure a healthful work environment (e.g., engineering or administrative controls)
10. What are the five main categories of workplace hazards?
• Chemical: arising from liquids, solids, fumes, dusts, vapors, and gases
• Physical: noise, vibration, poor lighting, radiation, and extreme temperatures
• Biological: bacteria, viruses, infectious waste and infestations
• Psychological: stress and strain
• Non-application of Ergonomic Principles: poorly designed machinery, workstations, mechanical devices and tools
11. What are some of the problems associated with the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS) and their counts for fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries?
The current literature proposes that the BLS counts may be underestimated by as much as 69% as the BLS excludes many categories of workers. These workers include: the self-employed; farms with <11 employees; employees covered by other federal safety and health laws; federal, state, and local government workers; and private household workers.
12. What are some of the causes of underreporting of injuries and illnesses by companies and workers?
Companies may underreport for the following reasons:
• View workers compensation system as an incentive system
• Firms are seeking government contracts and do not want to potentially jeopardize the outcome
• OSHA uses injury rates for targeting inspections
• The company wants to maintain an image of a "safe" workplace
Workers may underreport for the following reasons:
• Economic incentives by the employer
• Do not want to be considered as "accident prone"
• Fear of discipline for reporting
• Those who accept workers compensation are "slackers"
• Many foreign born workers will not report

13. What are OSHA's enforcement capabilities?
OSHA's enforcement capabilities are severely limited by the number of inspectors.
There are only approximately 2100 federal and state OSHA inspectors for over 8 million workplaces. According to current staffing levels it would take the following number of years for an inspection:
• Federal OSHA: 117 years for a single visit
• GA, LA, DE, FL OSHA: 150 years for a single visit
• 20 other states programs - over 150 years for a single site visit
• States with OSHA-approved plans: 65 years for a single visit
14. What is the Hazardous Communication Standard?
"The purpose of this section is to ensure that the hazards of all chemicals produced or imported are evaluated, and that information concerning their hazards is transmitted to employers and employees. This transmittal of information is to be accomplished by means of comprehensive hazard communication programs, which are to include container labeling and other forms of warning, material safety data sheets and employee training." (www.osha.gov)
• Uniform requirements for hazards of chemicals
• Chemical manufacturers must convey hazard information to downstream employees
• All employers must have a hazard communication program
• Ensure all employers received the information they need to inform and train their employees (i.e., labels, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), training)
• Ensure employees are effectively informed concerning potential and existing chemical hazards
15. What are the key components of a hazard communication program?
• A written program that must describe how the plan will be implemented
• Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS's)
• Material inventory
• Labels and other forms of "warning"
• Employee information, education, and training
• Retraining
• Non-routine tasks
• How to address contractors
16.
What are the highest risk industries in the United States?
• Mining
• Agriculture, forestry & fishing
• Transportation
• Construction