Keeping Up with OSHA

First of all, you can go straight to the source at www.osha.gov. You can visit the site on a daily basis and click on the "What’s New" button to check press releases on OSHA news, which includes information on regulatory updates. However, because rules don’t get updated often, this method can be tedious. A more practical way is to sign up for OSHA’s bi-weekly Quick Takes e-mail: http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/quicktakes/index.html, which will give you a heads-up on pending changes.

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Regarding compliance with current regs, you can check OSHA’s Letters of Interpretation to see if OSHA has commented on your issue. Look under "Laws and Regulations" for "Interpretations" where you can see how OSHA inspectors responded to questions by your safety colleagues around the country regarding specific regs and specific situations.

Of course, this free Safety Daily Advisor ezine that you’re reading right now will also keep you up to date with OSHA regulatory information. Because we also cover other topics, you can zero in on only OSHA regs by going to SafetyDailyAdvisor.com and clicking on “Safety Tips by Category” and then on “Enforcement and Regulation.” For example, in November 2009, SDA wrote about possible new OSHA regs for ergonomics, which you can see here..

You might also make Safety.BLR.com^® your home page to check on its daily news items. That’s another great place to see coverage of OSHA’s pending rule changes, when they become effective, and what they mean for your training requirements. The initial articles will be followed up by more in-depth analysis to help you meet these new obligations and keep your workplace in compliance.

Another source of in-depth OSHA news and analysis is the OSHA Compliance Advisor . This is a twice-monthly 8-page newsletter that includes “Washington Watch” and a “Federal Register Digest” for straight news as well as safety best practices case studies for ideas and inspiration from your safety colleagues on what methods succeed in complying with OSHA regulations and keeping your workers safe. Find out more and see a sample issue here.

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As you can see, you have a number of ways to keep up with OSHA. Use any or all of these resources to keep your commitment to keeping your workers safe.

Why It Matters …

• OSHA inspected 38,579 workplaces in one recent year.
• OSHA penalties range from $0 to $70,000, depending upon how likely the violation is to result in serious harm to employees.
• Since the agency was created almost 40 years ago, occupational deaths have been cut by 62 percent and injuries by 42 percent.

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