Osha Inspections Essay Examples

[Institute]
OSH Act was passed in 1970 by Congress to ensure the safety of human resource at workplace. This act was meant to improve the health and safety conditions at workplace and to motivate the employees to further discover newer and more innovative ways to achieve better, safer and healthier environment.
The OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) inspection at workplace needs to follow a certain procedure to uphold the compliance and maintain the standards. The OSHAs inspection activity should necessarily proceed in the following way :
OSHA may request an inspection or may go for an unrequested one as well. Similarly, the inspection conducted may be for the entire workplace or may be proposed for limited operations only owing to some sensitivity issues or some resource constraints.
Contrarily, a union or nay other stakeholder may also “call for an inspection” of any company by filling out a complaint form of OSHA. OSHA then decides whether to carry out an onsite inspection, as described above, or may send a written inspection to the employer .
In case for an onsite inspection, OSHA may send an advance notice to the company when immediate fix to some obvious problem is required, or some preparations are required prior to conducting the inspection, or if the required company representatives are expected not to be present at the time of inspection and their presence is required.
A representative from OSHA presents his identity and his requirements to a prospective company whose inspection has been ordered to him
This representative holds a meeting (called ‘an opening conference”) with the management or other suitable employees of that company and explains them why they want inspection of their company and how would they proceed. The purpose is to let the company people know why they have selected their company for inspection and what the basis of this selection became. The representatives of the company with whom the meeting is to take place cannot, at all, be selected by the employer. This is mostly done by OSHA itself or the representatives of theirs who visit the company.
Then that representative officer tours the selected company after that meeting and is allowed to take pictures, interviews or make notes that he can use later for the inspection purposes. He also has the right of confidentiality during this tour is allowed to have any kind of private interviews and meetings with the employees, particularly the affected ones. This tour or ‘walkaround” may take place prior to opening conference as well.
During this tour, the inspecting officer can use any devices, tools or machines for required level of observation and inspection. He may use camera to take pictures of ongoing practices at workplace or may demand any reports or legal documents from them too.
The outcome of the inspection has to be such that the problems are highlighted to the employer, the violations are shunned and solutions are recommended.
When the inspection has been done, the representative again holds a closing meeting with the company employees and reports them the conclusions drawn from their inspection and offer some help in the areas where they can.
Record keeping requirement: OSHA makes it mandatory to keep records for at least three recent years of any injuries, deaths or illnesses at workplace.
Reporting requirement: All the records maintained must be reported to OSHA so that a suitable action can be taken accordingly.

References

Goetch, D. L. (2014).
National Council for Occupational Safety amd Health. (n.d.). The OSHA Inspection: A Step-by-Step Guide . Retrieved April 4, 2015, from OSHA.gov: https://www.osha.gov/dte/grant_materials/fy10/sh-20853-10/osha_inspections.pdf