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Under federal law, administered by OSHA, workers are entitled to a safe workplace. Your employer must provide a workplace free of known health and safety hazards. If you have concerns, you have the right to speak up about them without fear of retaliation. You also have specific rights to:
Workers' Rights Booklet Revised in 2018
(OSHA 3021 - 2018)
(or Worker Rights in Spanish:PDF
OSHA 3473 - 2018)
The program must list the hazardous chemicals in each work area, how the employer will inform employees of the hazards of non-routine tasks (for example, the cleaning of reactor vessels), and hazards associated with chemicals in unlabeled pipes and how the employer will inform other employers at a multi-employer worksite of the hazards to which their employees may be exposed.
Get training from your employer on a variety of other health and safety hazards and standards that your employer must follow. These include lockout-tagout, bloodborne pathogens, confined spaces, construction hazards and a variety of other subjects.
When an employer plans to stop doing business and there is no successor employer to receive and maintain these records, the employer must notify you of your right of access to records at least 3 months before the employer ceases to do business.
The authorized employee representative has a right to accompany an OSHA compliance officer (also referred to as a compliance safety and health officer (CSHO) or inspector) during an inspection. Under no circumstances may the employer choose the workers' representative.
Where there is no union or employee representative, the OSHA inspector must talk confidentially with a reasonable number of workers during the course of the investigation.
You and your coworkers have a right to talk privately and confidentially to the compliance officer whether or not a workers' representative has been chosen.
You may point out hazards, describe injuries or illnesses or near misses that resulted from those hazards and describe past complaints about hazards. Inform the inspector if working conditions are not normal during the inspection. Make sure that the inspector is aware if equipment has been shut down, windows opened or other conditions changed from normal.
If health hazards are present in your workplace, a special OSHA health inspection may be conducted by an industrial hygienist. This OSHA inspector may take samples to measure levels of chemicals or other hazardous materials.
OSHA will let the employee representative know whether your employer is in compliance. The inspector also will gather detailed information about your employer's efforts to control health hazards, including results of tests your employer may have conducted.
Contact the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to request a health hazard evaluation if you are concerned about toxic effects of a substance in the workplace.
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PROVIDE COMMENTS AND TESTIMONY TO OSHA during rulemaking on new standards.
NOTE: States with OSHA-approved state plans (23 states and territories, plus two plans limited to public employees) provide at least the same rights and protections (and in some cases additional rights) to workers, although they may follow slightly different procedures. |
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Interesting Reads:
THE PREPPER'S CANNING & PRESERVING BIBLE: [13 in 1] Your Path to Food Self-Sufficiency. Canning, Dehydrating, Fermenting, Pickling & More, Plus The Food Preservation Calendar for a Sustainable Pantry
The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre! Paperback
The Citizens' Guide to Geologic Hazards: A Guide to Understanding Geologic Hazards Including Asbestos, Radon, Swelling Soils, Earthquakes, Volcanoes
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
Book: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Paperback