Unit VIII Case Study

• Weight: 8% of course grade
• Grading Rubric
• Due: Tuesday, 04/16/2019 11:59 PM (CST)

Instructions

There are two parts to this assignment. You must complete both parts. Each part must be a minimum of one page in length, for a total of two pages, not counting the title and reference pages. Please incorporate at least two references into the case study assignment. The assignment should be uploaded as one document, following APA formatting and referencing standards.

Part I: The General Duty Clause

Using the requirements for General Duty Clause violations in Chapter 4 of the OSHA Field Operations Manual (FOM) and any additional information you can find in OSHA compliance directives or standards interpretations, describe a situation involving ergonomics that could be cited as a violation of the General Duty Clause (Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act). Explain how your citation meets the four elements listed in the FOM as necessary to prove such a violation.

Part II: Interpreting OSHA Standards

Search the OSHA standards interpretations and compliance directives for supplemental information on three standards that are important to your workplace or a workplace with which you are familiar. Discuss what you found for each of the standards. Does the information change the way you view these standards or what you might need to do to comply with them in your workplace?

Resources

The following resource(s) may help you with this assignment.

Unit VIII Introduction

We look at the General Duty Clause in this unit, and how it is used. Some inexperienced readers might see it as an all-purpose fault-finder, but you will notice that OSHA has some very specific criteria that must be considered to use this clause as a violation citation. In addition to the General Duty Clause, we take a brief look at standard interpretations and compliance letters, and the OSHA CSHO’s book of rules, the Field Operations Manual.

Many employees are being injured by jobs that require repetitious motions, awkward positions, or overexertion through manual lifting. OSHA attempted to provide an ergonomic standard that resulted in Congressional action preventing the issuance of such a standard, so OSHA now has a set of guidelines for ergonomic activities.

Workplace violence has been on the rise, and OSHA has become involved by issuing General Duty violations to those companies that did not provide adequate protection in the workplace. The process required to issue standards or change existing ones is a long, arduous one, but OSHA does what it can to stay current and impact on worker safety through regulation, interpretations, and directives.

OSHA compliance is not the only thing that results in a true safety culture in the workplace so there is some discussion in this lesson about Safety & Health Program Management. In 1989, OSHA published its Voluntary Safety and Health Program Management Guidelines, and these continue to influence the newest studies and standards published by such organizations as ANSI, ASSE and the ISO.

Professor Reed