5 Steps to Better Contractor Safety

Build a strong contractor safety program that can withstand OSHA scrutiny

By Jim Stanley

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Employers using contractors are no longer able to require them to retain exclusive responsibility for the safety and health of their employees. Employers should develop a specific contractor safety program to address the new environment.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently held in the Summit contractors case that the controlling employer can no longer avoid OSHA responsibility simply by subcontracting work to another employer.

To meet these safety responsibilities, controlling employers should evaluate the degree to which they control the means and methods of their subcontractors’ work and implement a program to ensure that hazards/violations are identified and corrected:

1. Controlling employers need to review all contractor and subcontractor safety-related documentation, including all safety programs and policies to ensure they are current and address specific hazards, such falls, machine guarding, confined space entry, and electrical hazards, to which their employees are exposed or are potentially exposed.

2. Controlling employers cannot eliminate their OSHA liability by contract, but contractual language can be written to limit the controlling employers’ responsibility to correct hazardous conditions. Controlling employers must review contractual language to identify the degree of control that it exercises over other employers.

3. Controlling employers on multi-employer worksites must either inspect the worksite itself or require that subcontractors conduct inspections frequently enough so that the subs have the ability to identify and correct safety and/or health hazards/violations. If these inspection procedures are implemented, it is my opinion that the controlling employer will have exercised reasonable care to prevent and detect hazards/violations on the site. Controlling employers are not normally required to inspect for hazards as frequently or to have the same level of knowledge of the applicable OSHA standards or of trade expertise as the contractor it has hired.

4. Controlling employers must develop a system for subcontractors to monitor their employees, correct hazards/violations and report back to them.

5. The controlling employer must require all subcontractors to immediately report injuries/illnesses to them. The controlling employer must also require that all subcontractors maintain documentation of any worksite injuries or illnesses to their employees, as well any corrective actions that were taken to address any hazardous conditions that led to the injury or illness.

As was expected, the “new” OSHA is aggressively enforcing safety and health issues throughout the country. The multi-employer worksite policy is being used by the agency as another tool to aggressively enforce OSHA regulations. Controlling employers should develop written documentation, policies and procedures to show OSHA that they are exercising reasonable care to prevent and detect hazards on the worksite.

WP

Jim Stanley is president of FDRsafety and is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, the No. 2 job at the agency. He has extensive experience with contractor safety programs. He may be contacted at (513) 317-5644 or jstanley@fdrsafety.com. FDRsafety provides safety training, temporary safety staffing, industrial hygiene and OSHA compliance services.

Useful link related to this article:
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