Requesting OSHA Citation Appeals in a Safety Management Meeting

Informal Conference Case Joshua R. Collins Columbia Southern University BOS 3525 December 8, 2020

In response to the Notice of Citations and Penalties from the OSHA following the OSHA compliance officer’s inspection, I, the safety manager, have scheduled an informal conference with the area director at the local OSHA office. During this meeting, I will review several of the citations and penalties that this facility has been charged with the hopes of having the citations and penalties reduced. For this meeting, I would request the plant supervisor to accompany me and speak on behalf of the employees that he/she oversees; in addition to the plant supervisor, I would bring all related procedures and facility maps to further support my requests and appeals. I would like to discuss the violation regarding the employees with beards wearing half- mask air-purifying respirators. As stated in previous conversation with the OSHA representative, we stated that we will conduct fit tests on every employee that has to wear a respirator for their job. We will also create a formalized class for the employees that they will have to take yearly; this class will go over how to put the respirator on correctly, how to clean the respirator and which cartridges you will need for each gas. In addition to this, the employees will receive a medical evaluation to ensure that they are medically cleared to even wear a respirator. Implementing this screening and medical procedure would remedy the issue. The resources needed include a medical professional to perform the medical screenings, respirators and an air- purifying respirator class curriculum. In response to this citation and penalty, I am requesting that these citations be changed to a warning and for the fines to be reduced. As the safety manager, I feel that this request is reasonable, since we are meeting the OSHA requirements by implementing a respiratory program with medical evaluations as outlined in CFR 1910.134 (c) and implementing fit testing as outlined in CFR 1910.134 Appendix A (OSHA, 2020d; OSHA, 2020a). The program being implemented also goes beyond the OSHA requirements with the implementation of the clean shave policy, this is supported by the standard interpretation of CFR

1910.134 response to Mr. Logan from the Helena Fire Department (Galassi & OSHA, 2012). When attending this meeting, I would bring the written respiratory program, a blank medical form used in the medical examinations and provide an example of the fit test for the respirator. In addition to this, I would also request for the citations and penalties related to eye exposure to hazardous chemicals and the lack of labeled eye wash stations to be changed to warnings and reduced penalties. This is a feasible appeal since we have created a new procedure following the OSHA inspection. Since then, we have required employees in areas of exposure to wear fitted goggles and we have built eye wash in the hazardous chemical areas. For these new eye wash stations, we have clearly labeled them, indicating the stations on facility maps and created a procedure to test the function of the eye wash stations monthly. Furthermore, with new rules, the facility is adhering to CFR 1910.151(c) regarding the presence of eyewash stations and going beyond the CFR with the monthly inspections of the station and to CFR 1910.133 in regard to mandatory eye protection (OSHA, 2020c; OSHA, 2020b). For this meeting, I would bring the written procedure for eye protection, the written procedure for the monthly inspections of the eye wash stations, pictures of the eye wash station clearly labeled, and the maps, which indicate the locations of the eye wash stations. Is it imperative that I review the citation regarding the unmarked chemical containers with the OSHA area director. I would request that this citation and penalty be fully omitted, since all other chemical containers were labeled and since we immediately labeled the container after the compliance officer’s inspection. To support my request, I would bring pictures of the labeled containers to the meeting. Finally, I would appeal the citation for the singular missing SDS for one of the hazardous chemicals. Since the inspection, I have placed copies in all the major areas, breakrooms, the front

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offices and created a digital copy, so that all employees have access to it regardless of their location in the facility. I would request for this citation and penalty to be discarded as following the inspection, we located the missing SDS in a stray file bin in the facility. I would bring this SDS with me to the meeting to support this claim as well as picture proof that this SDS is posted in all of the locations mentioned. I selected these violations to appeal as I felt that they were the most reasonable to review, being that I have implemented these policies and procedures to correct these violations immediately following the inspection. I also believe that we have done everything in our power to make our employees are safe and can go home every day to our families.

References Galassi, T., & OSHA. (2012). Facial Hair Under Seal of Tight-fitting Respirator. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/2012-09-14 aOSHA. (2020). 1910.134 App A - Fit Testing Procedures (Mandatory). Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.134AppA bOSHA. (2020). 1910.133 Eye and Face Protection. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/laws- regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.133 cOSHA (2020). Medical services and first aid. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/laws- regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.151 dOSHA. (2020). 1910.134 Respiratory Protection. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.134

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