Employers owe it to their workers to create policies that ensure their safety, but where the issue may get clouded is when the work site is not the sole purview of one individual employer. When dealing with complex projects, there might be various contractors and subcontractors on hand to oversee numerous facets of work, which begs the question of who is responsible for safety in that instant.
Prompted by a recent series of OSHA citations issued on a New Hampshire work project, a new report has come out that offers some tips to overseers of sites staffed by workers employed by multiple employers.
The first step that must be done is for the overseer of the worksite itself to build safety policies in from the ground up that anyone who is going to be onsite will need to follow. This should even go into the language in the contract as agreements are being worked out. That way, everyone onsite gets a sense of what training and precautions are needed and who’s going to pay for things like Personal Protective Equipment. All such necessary safety equipment should be on hand from the outset and there should be some framework in place to correct violations among employees.
All workers should understand they can cease a given task if they believe they are in danger, and employers must be willing to listen to these concerns. Everyone on site should know the hazards involved and what can be done to correct them.