Construction Contractor AdvisorConstruction Contractor Advisor: OSHA requires that an employer do everything reasonably within its power to ensure that its personnel do not violate safety standards. But if an employer lives up to that billing and an employee nonetheless fails to use proper equipment or otherwise ignores firmly established safety measures, it seems unfair to hold the employer liable.
3 comments:
This is interesting, I was completely unaware of this. I'm surprised that this never came up in our OSHA class, but I guess that was about making people act safe not the legal side. I wonder how much this comes up. You would have to be in an environment that is pretty safe and do something to abuse that situation. We don't exactly operate in the safest business but employees are making that worse not better. I once saw someone climb over the midrail to put a screw into the top of a wall, while holding onto the railing with one hand. That is a thing that happened. There is rightfully a large burden on the employer to encourage a safe working apartment, but a lot of workers do not seem to realize that there is a burden on them to. This law is a demonstration of that, the employer can only do so much, at a certain point the employee needs to make sure they are behaving in a safe manner.
Yeah, I agree with Isaac, this isn't really a consideration I've ever really had before. I really guess this is a very fine needle to thread. On one hand, this clause could let opportunistic companies get away with blaming their employees wrongfully or fraudulently. On the other hand, employee negligent workplace injuries can be blamed on a company that really is not at fault. I guess it really is in any given company's benefit to be in full OSHA compliance to prevent litigation. I think OSHA has some really good ideas, but sometimes their mandates just feel completely over the top and borderline ridiculous to the point where anybody that says OSHA kind of gets laughed out of the room.
Going back to the topic at hand, the guidelines for establishing the "Unpreventable Employee Misconduct Defense" does seem rather vague. Rather than clearing up potential litigation, it seems like OSHA has only made it easier for different parties to test the strength of these mandates.
Workplace safety is different everywhere you go. It depends on the type of job you are doing and the risks associated with that job. Also, I think part of it has to do with the type of company that is employing those workers. Having worked on a construction site, I can honestly say we had some safety rules in place, but because the structure we were building was no more than a one story building. The concern for hard hats wasn’t necessary until it became time to put the roofing on. The worst that could have happened before then was rain, but I don’t think that can do much harm. That was probably said with a little sarcasm. As I go through the OSHA class next semester, I think it will provide me a better sense of the rules and regulations that should have been in play on the job site that were just overlooked, because everyone there had done it several times before, and they knew the risks involved.
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