On July 2nd, OSHA proposed a long-anticipated rule that outlines steps employers must take to protect indoor and outdoor workers from the risk of heat injuries and illness suffered by workers that are making deliveries, carrying mail all day, working construction, picking vegetables, repairing power lines, doing landscaping, and more.
This is the first major regulation aimed at preventing heat-related deaths on the job as ordered by President Biden.
Let take a closer look at the OSHA heat standard requirements.
What are the risks of extreme heat?
Excessive heat exacerbates existing health problems like asthma, kidney failure, and heart disease, and can cause heat stroke and even death if not treated properly and promptly.
“While agricultural and construction workers often come to mind first when thinking about workers most exposed to heat hazards, without proper safety actions, sun protection and climate-control, intense heat can be harmful to a wide variety of workers indoors or outdoors and during any season,” Jim Frederick, acting assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, said in the release.
Workers across hundreds of industries in both outdoor and indoor work settings without adequate climate-controlled environments are at risk of hazardous heat exposure.
While 80% of heat-related fatalities occurred in outdoor work environments, 61% of non-fatal heat-related illness cases occurred during or after work in an indoor work environment (Tustin et al., August 2018).
What requirements are in OSHA heat injury standard?
There are four major things to consider in the rule.
- At 80 degrees heat index, employers must provide drinking water and break areas. This threshold would factor in humidity as well as temperature.
- At 90 degrees heat index, employers must monitor for signs of heat illness and provide mandatory 15-minute breaks every two hours. This threshold would factor in humidity as well as temperature.
- Employers must designate a heat safety coordinator and evaluate their heat safety plans every year.
- OSHA heat rule is a specification standard, which means it does not permit any discretion by employers in deciding what to do and when to address heat as a workplace hazard.
Who are exempt from OSHA heat injury rule?
This heat injury standard does not apply to the following:
- Work activities for which there is no reasonable expectation of exposure at or above the initial heat trigger.
- Short duration employee exposures at or above the initial heat trigger of 15 minutes or less in any 60-minute period.
- Organizations whose primary function is the performance of firefighting and emergency response.
- Work activities performed in indoor work areas or vehicles where air-conditioning consistently keeps the ambient temperature below 80°F.
- Telework, and
- Sedentary work activities at indoor work areas that only involve some combination of the following: sitting, occasional standing and walking for brief periods of time, and occasional lifting of objects weighing less than 10 pounds.
What is a Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Plan (HIIPP)?
The employer must designate one or more heat safety coordinators to implement and monitor the Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Plan with site-specific information.
The HIIPP must be written if there are more than 10 employees and must include:
- A comprehensive list of the types of work activities covered by the plan.
- All policies and procedures necessary to comply with the requirements of this standard; and
- An identification of the heat metric (i.e., heat index or wet bulb globe temperature) the employer will monitor.
If the employer has employees who wear vapor-impermeable clothing, the employer must evaluate heat stress hazards resulting from these clothing and implement policies and procedures based on reputable sources to protect employees while wearing these clothing.
If a heat-related illness or injury occurs, the employer must review and evaluate the effectiveness of the HIIPP and update it as necessary.
The employer must make the HIIPP readily available at the work site to all employees performing work at the work site and available in a language each employee, supervisor, and heat safety coordinator understands.
Identifying heat hazards
Outdoor work.
The employer must monitor heat conditions at outdoor work areas by:
- Tracking local heat index forecasts provided by the National Weather Service or other reputable sources; or
- At or as close as possible to the work area(s), measuring the following:
- Heat index, or ambient temperature and humidity measured separately to calculate heat index; or
- Wet bulb globe temperature.
Indoor work
At indoor work sites, the employer must identify each work area(s) where there is a reasonable expectation that employees are or may be exposed to heat at or above the initial heat trigger.
- The employer must develop and implement a monitoring plan covering each work area to determine when employees are exposed to heat at or above the initial and high heat triggers. The employer must include the monitoring plan in the HIIPP and the monitoring plan must include measuring one of the following at or as close as possible to the work area(s):
- Heat index, or ambient temperature and humidity measured separately to calculate heat index; or
- Wet bulb globe temperature.
- Whenever there is a change in production, processes, equipment, controls, or a substantial increase in outdoor temperature which has the potential to increase heat exposure indoors, the employer must evaluate any affected work area(s) to identify where there is reasonable expectation that employees are or may be exposed to heat at or above the initial heat trigger. The employer must update their monitoring plan or develop and implement a monitoring plan to account for any increases in heat exposure.
- The employer must seek the input and involvement of non-managerial employees and their representatives, if any, when evaluating the work site to identify work areas with a reasonable expectation of exposures at or above the initial heat trigger and in developing and updating monitoring plans.
Are the rules too extreme?
The rule, if finalized, could add protections for 35 million workers nationwide but will likely face a lot of opposition during the comment period.
There are five states that have similar heat injury protections: California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, but could face a second Donald Trump presidency that paused a lot of new rulemakings during his first term in office.
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