EMPLOYERS PAY FOR SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES

EMPLOYERS PAY FOR SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) clarified its position that employers,
in most cases, must, provide and nay for workers’ personal protective equipment (PPE).

In a compliance memorandum sent to field offices, OSHA noted that its general PPE standard, as well as specific standards, should be interpreted to require employers to provide and pay for personal protective equipment required by the company to do his or her job safely and in compliance with OSHA standards.

If the equipment is very personal in nature and is usable by the workers off the job, the matter of payment may be left to labor management negotiations.

Examples of personal protective equipment that would not normally be used away from the work site include, but are not limited to welding gloves, wire mesh gloves, respirators, hard hats, specialty glasses and goggles (such as those designed for laser or ultraviolet radiation protection), specialty foot protection (such as metatarsal shoes and lineman’s shoes with built in gaffs), face shields and rubber gloves, blankets, cover ups, hot sticks and other live line tools used by power generation workers.

Examples of personal protective equipment that is personal in nature and often used away from the work site include non specialty safety glasses, safety shoes and cold weather outerwear of the type worn by construction workers. However, shoes or outerwear subject to contamination by carcinogens or other toxic or hazardous substances which cannot be safely worn off site must be paid for by the employer.

Failure of the employer to pay for PPE that is not personal and not used away from the job is a violation of OSHA standards and shall be cited, the memorandum noted.

Compliance officers were advised to evaluate carefully assertions by employers that particular items of personal protective equipment should be paid for by employees.

The memorandum noted that the PPE standard does make an exception to allow employees to provide their own equipment to accommodate work situations in which it is customary for workers in a particular trade to provide their own PPE. But the standard does not specify that the practice as the norm. Instead, the standard underscores the employer’s obligation to ensure that such equipment is adequate and that it is properly maintained.

Contributor: Matthew J. Key – Sr. Safety Professional, author and publisher.  Mr. Keys articles are copy-righted.

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