Welcome OSHA as a partner - includes related articles on Occupational Safety and Health Administration consultation services and on voluntary protection program - Cover Story

HR Magazine, Oct, 1999 by William Atkinson

Cooperative programs let your work with inspectors instead of against them.

Would you really want to invite inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to check out your business? Isn't that the height of foolishness?

While it may sound like letting the fox into the hen house, some businesses and HR professionals insist that inviting OSHA to strike up a voluntary partnership makes good business sense.

When it comes to working with the agency, employers basically have three options: the agency's consultation services, the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) and individual requests for assistance.

Consultation Services

By participating in the consultation program, employers can receive assistance in identifying potential worksite hazards, improve their safety and health performance and qualify for a one-year exemption from routine OSHA inspections.

With OSHA's approval, state governments provide the service through a staff of state employees who are experienced safety and health consultants. The service is primarily targeted to smaller businesses and is separate from OSHA inspections. The consultants neither issue citations nor propose penalties.

All consultation services are confidential. Normally, OSHA never even learns the name of participating businesses - much less the contents of any information they share with consultants or any unsafe or unhealthful work conditions that may be uncovered. The exception: OSHA must be called when there is imminent danger.

The employer's only obligation is to commit to correcting serious job safety and health hazards in a timely manner - a commitment that consultants expect will be made before they visit the workplace.

While OSHA encourages employers to allow consultants to conduct a thorough worksite evaluation, employers are allowed to request that the service be limited to one or more specific problems.

The inspection is similar in many ways to a traditional OSHA inspection, beginning with an opening conference, moving to a walk-through inspection (with employee participation strongly encouraged by OSHA) and concluding with a closing conference.

In the rare instance when a consultant identifies a situation of imminent danger, the employer would be required to take immediate action to protect employees. In cases that OSHA would consider serious violations, the employer and consultant would be required to create and agree on reasonable times and schedules to control or eliminate the hazards.

If an employer fails to control or eliminate any identified serious hazards or imminent dangers within the abatement period, the consultant must refer the case to OSHA, but this rarely happens.

(For commentary on the value of OSHA's consultation services, see "OSHA's Consultation Services: A Good Deal?" on page 48.)

Voluntary Protection Program

OSHA created the well-regarded VPP in 1982. As of April 1999, there were 414 OSHA VPP sites.

The VPP creates a formal agreement between OSHA and a specific worksite. (A multisite corporation or company, per se, cannot be part of the program.) Under the agreement, management promises to operate an effective safety and health program that meets an established set of criteria.

The program includes such elements as "worksite analysis, hazard prevention and control, and safety and health training," explains Cathy Oliver, OSHA's chief of voluntary programs in Washington, D.C.

Site employees and employee unions also agree to participate in the program and to work with management.

Initially, OSHA verifies that the site's program meets VPP criteria. The agency then publicly recognizes the site and removes it from the lists of routine scheduled inspections. (However, the agency still may investigate major accidents, formal employee complaints and chemical spills.)

OSHA also reassesses the site periodically to confirm that it continues to meet VPP criteria.

VPP sites fall into one of two classes: Star Program sites and Merit Program sites. Of the two, Star Program sites must achieve a higher safety standard.

For example, Star Program sites must demonstrate injury rates and lost workday case rates that are at or below the average for the business's industry. At Star Program sites with unions, the unions must sign on to the program and assure that they will support the worksite's application for VPP status.

To become a Merit Program site, a worksite must meet the requirements for a comprehensive program and union commitment, if there is a union. "If [the site] can demonstrate these two requirements, but still has rates higher than the industry average, it can become a Merit Program member, but it must be able to lower its rates over a three-year period," explains Oliver.

Sites in the Star Program are reassessed every three years, while Merit Program sites are reassessed annually.

The amount of work involved in applying for the VPP varies, depending on the size of the site and its unique safety requirements and environment. OSHA encourages applicants to tailor programs to their specific needs, which may require a significant amount of paperwork. However, that burden may be eased because OSHA encourages applicants to use as much existing written material - such as safety manuals, training materials and minutes of safety committee meetings - as possible.