If you were thinking of lightening up your COVID-19 safety measures – hold your horses! OSHA’s National Emphasis Program is here and OSHA is specifically investigating companies that put the largest number of workers at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 and employers whose employees have complained about an unsafe workplace.
Even if your workplace is fully vaccinated, you still need to follow OSHA guidelines and state requirements. The OSHA Regional Administrator Galen Blanton notes, “Stopping the spread of this virus requires business’ support in implementing COVID-19 Prevention Programs, and ensuring that staff and customers wear face coverings and maintain physical distance from each other.”
One local Massachusetts tax preparation business faces $136,532 in penalties for:
- Prohibiting employees and customers from wearing face coverings in the workplace despite a statewide mask order that mandated the business to require employees and customers to wear masks.
- Requiring employees to work within six feet of each other and customers for multiple hours while not wearing face coverings.
- Failing to provide adequate means of ventilation at the workplace.
- Failing to implement controls such as physical barriers, pre-shift screening of employees, enhanced cleaning and other methods to reduce the potential for person-to-person transmission of the virus.
Not all businesses are willfully failing to develop and implement safety measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, but you still need to ensure that your business is not only meeting the OSHA standards, but also statewide guidelines, including the Mandatory Safety Standards in Massachusetts.
New OSHA Recordkeeping Requirement for Vaccination Reactions
If you are requiring your employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment, you must record an employee’s adverse reaction to the vaccination in your OSHA 300 Log if the employee’s reaction is a new case and results in:
- An absence from work or more than one day;
- Medical treatment beyond first aid; or
- Restricted work or transfer to another job.
If you are recommending COVID-19 vaccinations the vaccine may be recordable if it is work-related; a new case; and meets the general recording criteria under OSHA guidelines. OSHA is exercising its enforcement discretion to only require the recording of adverse effects to required vaccines at this time.
We have a streamlined solution to protect your workplace and comply with OHSA and the CDC: the COVID-19 Workplace Hazard Compliance Tools. For a fixed fee, you will receive a:
- Model COVID-19 Prevention Program;
- COVID-19 Safety Policy;
- Temperature Checks and Symptom Monitoring Policy;
- Business Travel Policy;
- Reasonable Accommodation for Vulnerable Worker Policy; and
- Contact Tracing Policy.
We can help. Contact us for information on the COVID-19 Workplace Hazard Compliance Tools or any other questions.