OSHA’S New Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Rule - Are You In Compliance?
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced last Fall its final ruling on employer-paid personal protective equipment (PPE). This new regulation addresses employer payment for personal protective equipment (PPE), which is any safety equipment or device that must be worn in the workplace to prevent worker injury. Common examples of PPE include goggles, gloves, protective footwear, back belts, and ear plugs.
The rule became effective on February 13, 2008. The employer compliance deadline for OSHA’s final rule on payment for personal protective equipment (PPE) expired May 15th, 2008. In short, your organization must now be in compliance with the new ruling.
As a brief overview, many OSHA’s health, safety, maritime, and construction standards require employers to provide their employees with protective equipment, including personal protective equipment (PPE), when such equipment is necessary to protect employees from job-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. These requirements address PPE of many kinds: hard hats, gloves, goggles, safety shoes, safety glasses, welding helmets, face shields, chemical protective equipment, fall protection equipment, and so forth. The provisions in OSHA standards that require PPE generally state that the employer is to provide appropriate PPE. However, up until this ruling the OSHA provisions did not specify that the employer is to provide such PPE at no cost to the employee, although the vast majority of organizations did. Under this new ruling OSHA is requiring employers to pay for the PPE provided. The rule does not require employers to provide PPE where none has been required before. Instead, the rule merely stipulates that the employer must pay for required PPE, except in the limited cases specified in the standard.
To comply with PPE regulations, it is recommended that you survey your worksite to determine what type of PPE is needed, communicate those decisions to your workers, and provide the necessary equipment at no cost to the employee where required. Failure to comply with OSHA regulations, including the new PPE rule, can result in fines up to $7,000 per violation, so there is significant bite to this ruling.
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