OHSA has been in the news and a hot topic in some of the contractor forums. How do these rules apply to residential painting contractors? You may be at risk of violating OHSA safety rules even if you do keep a safe workspace. Do you really know how to keep a safe workplace? What do you need to do to protect your employees? And your company?
Mark Paskell of the Contractors Coaching Partnership has been helping Maine Contractors stay compliant and has agreed to write a guest blog for the Blogging Painters to help painters understand the new rules taking effect this year.
OSHA’s intense focus and scrutiny of the residential construction industry reveals the lack of awareness and compliance amongst home improvement contractors, remodelers, builders and trades. Last year OSHA named the industry a target for enforcement and they said they will aggressively pursue contractors in this sector.
Residential contractors have never been in the cross hairs like the commercial sector. OSHA training, like OSHA 10 and 30, are usually mandated for commercial firms working on public projects. Residential contractors have not been required through enforcement to adopt the policies of the agency and have little or no experience of how to comply. The recent rash of injuries and deaths on residential work sites has led to this new focus.
I look forward to reading his suggestions!
One way I stay safe is I keep everyone off tall ladders and roofs. I will only do the riskier tasks to keep my chances of having an employee hurt. I would not be able to financial afford a mistake like that. I am a really small time painter here in Florida.
Thanks for commenting, you might want to look into OHSA Training for your employees to help you with that.
OSHA really wants to see three things: 1. a written safety plan that your workers know about and agree to follw; 2. documentation of ongoing safety training and safety briefings; 3. documentation of efforts to enforce safe work practices on your jobsites. If you put these three things in place you will A. reduce the frequency and severity of injuries in your business and B. have a defensible position if/when an accident happens. For tools to make putting these three things in place as simply as possible, check out oshasafety.pinkiguanaanalogservices.com and http://www.paintersafetyforms.com