This is the third in a series of articles about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This article examines OSHA-approved state plans. Read the first part here and the second part here.
Multistate employers may have to comply with more than one occupational safety and health (OSH) program, which means they must pay attention to nuances in regulations and administrative procedures.
State Plans
The federal OSH Act covers most private employers and their workers. However, OSHA allows states to develop their own workplace health and safety plans, as long as those plans are “at least as effective” as the federal program.
“When Congress passed the OSH Act in 1970, a compromise was reached to allow states to opt out of federal OSHA, subject to certain conditions,” explained John Martin, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Washington, D.C. “Some states, such as California, already had state OSH agencies in 1970, and they did not want to lose them to the federal government.”
Twenty-one states and Puerto Rico have OSHA-approved plans that cover private employers as well as state and local government employers. Five more states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have plans that cover only state and local government employers.
“It can be difficult for employers with multistate operations to get a handle on the nuances under each plan,” according to Patrick Miller, an attorney with Sherman & Howard in Denver. Many state plans simply adopted the federal requirements, but even those plans may have different procedural hurdles, he said.
State plans have their own review and appeal systems. “The procedures are generally similar to OSHA’s, but cases are heard by a state review board or equivalent authority,” according to OSHA.
Managing People at Work 