The Purpose of OSHA’s July 2022 National Emphasis Program

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has placed a notice to employers nationwide regarding rising temperatures.

According to their notice, federal inspectors can stop by worksites unannounced, both indoors and outdoors, to ensure workers are safe from heat exposure.

This notice comes from the establishment of their new NEP: National Emphasis Program.

Thanks to this program's work, OSHA inspectors will be able to target workplaces in more than 70 industries at “high risk” of heat exposure.

The best examples of high-risk industries include agriculture, warehouses, and construction. 

Though the program is the Administration’s first heat-related enforcement tool, such programs are important because they save lives.

Expect Your Unexpected Guests

Under the program's guidelines, inspectors may visit workplaces that were previously limited to inspections only after receiving complaints or reports of workplace injuries or fatalities.

During their visits, inspectors can assess whether workers are being protected from high heat and other hazards.

This program is a part of the Biden Administration’s broader efforts to address the effects of climate change through the use of a “whole of government approach.”

In the words of Vice President Kamala Harris, “Heat is a workplace safety issue… And employers are responsible for protecting their workers in the workplace from the dangers of heat, including in farm fields, in delivery vans, and in nursing homes— everywhere that has workers” (Wittenberg).

“We want to be proactively addressing heat hazards," said OSHA Deputy Assistant Secretary Jim Frederick while explaining the importance of this program. 

“Without an emphasis program, we can see a hazard and address it if we are already in a workplace, but this gives us the ability to proactively go to these workplaces and see what heat protections they have in place.”

He continued by stating that the emphasis program is “a tool that helps us make certain we are reaching workers we might otherwise not because they might not want to call us and ask for help.”

He explained that the emphasis program allows inspectors to request assistance and have a say in their occupational safety conditions and implementation methods.

OSHA compliance workers are currently doing consultations with employers.

These consultations include visiting worksites and explaining what needs to be done to make them safer.

However, formal inspections that can result in citations for violations will begin soon.

The National Emphasis program became effective on April 8, 2022, and triggers heat-related inspections.

What Changes Can Employers Expect?

When the heat index is expected to be 80℉ or when a “heat priority day” is declared, OSHA will inquire about heat-related hazard prevention programs during inspections.

OSHA will be selecting employers for pre-planned inspections to occur in areas given a heat warning or advisory in high-risk industries, including but not limited to:

• Foundries
• Warehouses
• Farming
• Waste collection
• Residential construction

The program also includes OSHA referring to information from the Wage & Hour Division of the Department of Labor about investigating reported inadequate working and living conditions, as well as wages (LLP).

The program also includes steps that OSHA must take in inspecting heat-related hazards, including:

• Review injury and illness logs and incident reports for entries indicating heat-related illness
• Review records of heat-related emergency room visits and/or ambulance transport, even if hospitalization did not occur
• Interview workers about heat illness symptoms such as headache, dizziness, fainting, and dehydration.
• Determine if the employer maintains a heat illness and injury prevention program
• Consider whether the program addresses hydration, breaks, shade, acclimatization, training, and other relevant policies; and
• Document relevant conditions, such as the heat index, any NWS heat alerts, type of heat source (e.g., direct sunlight, proximity to furnace), any injured employee’s exertion level and duration of exposure to heat, and the like.

Heat Regulation is in the Works for OSHA 

There are plans for other actions OSHA can take to protect workers from heat.

Juley Fulcher, Worker Health and Safety Advocate at Public Citizen, explained that while the program is a good thing, there is a limit to how much impact NEP can have without specific, federally mandated standards that tell employees exactly what they need to do to protect workers from heat.

OSHA currently has no heat regulations.

Right now, they are relying on the “general duty clause,” which broadly requires employers to ensure workplaces are safe from “recognized hazards.”

This clause presents a potential struggle, as issuing citations for heat hazards based on a small clause within another mandate is only a fraction of the Administration’s full authority.

Fulcher questioned and criticized this clause by saying that “there is such a high burden to issue a heat citation under the general duty clause now that they can only do anything with the most extreme cases,” Fulcher said.

“That’s why a heat rule would be so important, because when you cite someone, you could say, ‘Here it is, written on paper, here is what you had to do that you didn’t do."

OSHA has given justifications ranging from a lack of funding, despite a fiscal budget of almost $20 million, to prioritizing infectious disease protections during the pandemic.

However, regulating heat is not a complicated challenge.

While regulations can take more than seven years to finalize, the Administration has addressed this by regulating infectious diseases and toxic and carcinogenic chemical exposures, despite these being either rare or new and currently evolving.

OSHA has already taken the first step towards establishing a federal heat standard.

In October 2021, OSHA released an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings.

OSHA is currently using the information gathered from this to develop a federal rule on heat stress.

What Employers Can Do: Protecting Your Staff and Operations

However, there are plenty of steps employers can take to ensure workplace safety for employees.

Under the program, employers can request a consultation.

Spanish Fort System Superintendent Jason Evans explained his consultation experience with SafeState, a University of Alabama program through OSHA NEP, in his own blog post.

He explained that the consultation included:

• An observation of normal work
• Touring of facilities
• Speaking to employees
• Conducting an anonymous on-site survey
• Establish areas of improvement

He explained that the result of the consultation was an increase in employee safety and awareness by allowing both parties to ask:

“Is there a better way to accomplish my tasks and workplace safety?”

His advice for other small businesses was to take advantage of programs such as SafeState.

Programs such as SafeState are vital, but not the only step that employers can take to ensure workplace safety.

Constant monitoring is key to ensuring that safety practices are properly enabled in managed environments.

Stay Ahead of the Inspections With Sonicu

Sonicu is the perfect monitoring tool because it uses built-in sensors to easily monitor temperature, sound, humidity, air pressure, and more.

The platform can be adjusted to your preferences, and data from 24/7 monitoring can be accessed via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or a cellular modem.

This data can be auto-formatted into standardized and custom reports for regulatory compliance or advanced analytical reporting to measure the metrics important to your business.

OSHA recommends employers take certain steps to protect their employees and themselves, including:

• Ensuring their safety policies address heat-related hazards
• Implementing acclimatization periods for new employees who aren’t adjusted to working full days in high heat
• Developing a means to monitor the heat index and employee exposure to heat
• Training employees on heat-related illness and emergency response

Sonicu also provides custom solutions to help you meet your specific business objectives and OSHA standards.

Sonicu is the number one choice for hospitals, health departments, research facilities, manufacturing, and cold storage warehousing.

The platform offers many benefits and is essential to your business success, so schedule a demo to learn how to improve your business today.

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About Sonicu

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