⚠️OSHA HEAT ILLNESS STANDARD UPDATE⚠️
OSHA has officially published their notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the Heat Injury and Illness Prevention standard. 🥵
Below is a brief summary of some of the main components of the proposed standard:
- This standard does not allow any employer discretion - it specifies multiple thesholds /triggers for the various requirements that must be followed;
- At a heat index of 80⁰F, employers must provide drinking water and break areas;
- At a heat index of 90⁰F, employers must monitor for signs of heat illness and provide MANDATORY 15-minute paid breaks every 2 hours;
- Employers must designate at least one "Heat Safety Coordinator";
- Employers must develop a site-specific Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Plan (HIIPP), and evaluate all HIIPPs at least annually;
- Employers must seek the input and involvement of non-managerial employees and their representatives, if any, in the development and implementation of the HIIPP;
- Employers must develop and implement an acclimatization protocol for NEW employees during their first week for work, as well as RETURNING employees who have been away from work for more than 14 days; and
- Various initial and annual training requirements, including specific training requirements for Supervisors.
As this standard will affect nearly all employers performing work indoors and/or outdoors (with some exceptions), I encourage you to review the NRPM and submit your feedback/comments for review.
Although they will create a new standard for each of the other three industry categories (Construction, Maritime, and Agriculture), OSHA is proposing that each of these other industries follow the requirements of their General Industry standard (29 CFR 1910.148).
If this NPRM were to pass and go into effect "as is", how would it affect your company's operations?
Visit the link below for additional information regarding this "hot" topic! 👇🏻
https://www.osha.gov/heat-exposure/rulemaking
Comments (16)
In my early career in the foundry over in Michigan this was an issue for a few weeks each year. Typically late July and August. Since 1990 lived here in NE Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Michigan, this has rarely been a problem.
However, as the climate is changing those times are getting more frequent even here! So far this year we have gotten lots of rain so this has been a cool summer. Hope it stays that way! I think we have only been in the 80s a couple times!
It would require a few minor tweaks to our current Heat Illness program that I wrote two years ago, but not many. I support this legislation in part, but they shouldn't be dictating breaks/potential costs to the employer. For the love of all that is holy, my own governor in FLA took away county/city's right to establish their own protocols. We should have discretion. OSHA will just use this (like everything else they've done under this administration) to push a socio political agenda, "climate change," and other anti american ideas that have nothing to do with safety and all about control. I'm not afraid to say it. My own governor wants to ban people from determining what's good for them locally because he's the whore of big business and the Federal government is the other polar opposite that has an agenda to. This is where we are as a society, everything is political, we just can't care about safety and have sensible regulations.
It won't affect my employees much as the states we perform work in (WA and OR) already have Heat Exposure rules.
The standard is very similar to California's. The biggest difference is the trigger point temperatures. California uses 85 and 95. California also doesn't make reference to heat index. We don't have humidity issues in California in the summertime.
I work part time (as an emt and safety intern) at a moderate sized theme park in Indiana and we will have to tweak our policy a but, but we have a policy in effect already.
My company is in the "Finance Industry" (office setting). We contract our maintenance work, but we do have company employees that do other physical labor indoors where the temperature is kept around 70 - 74 degrees F. The work is minor (IT related). Does the NPRM require all industries (including the Finance Industry) to develop a HIIPP if we do not have company employees that meet the trigger points?