OSHA to target 4,000 worksites in 2004
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) site-specific targeting (SST) plan for 2004 will focus on approximately 4,000 high-hazard worksites for unannounced comprehensive safety and health inspections.

“Enforcement must continue to be the underpinning of OSHA's mission,” says OSHA administrator John Henshaw. “At the same time, it must be fair, strong and effective to produce change where necessary. Our targeted program does this by allowing us to focus enforcement resources at workplaces where the safety and health risks are high and where they will have the most benefit to workers and employers."

OSHA has used a site-specific targeting inspection program based on injury and illness data. This year’s program (SST-04) stems from the agency’s data initiative for 2003, which surveyed approximately 80,000 employers to attain their injury and illness numbers for 2002.

This year’s program is effective April 19 and will initially cover about 4,000 individual worksites on the primary list that reported 15 or more injuries or illnesses resulting in days away from work, restricted work activity, or job transfer for every 100 full-time workers (known as the DART rate).

The agency will also randomly select and inspect about 200 workplaces with 200 or more employees that reported low injury and illness rates to review the actual degree of OSHA compliance.

Finally, the agency will include on the primary list some establishments that did not respond to collection of 2001 and 2002 data.

OSHA proposes revisions to electrical
installation standard 1910. subpart S
OSHA seeks comments on proposed revisions to its electrical installation standard to make it more flexible and efficient while strengthening worker protection.

The present standard is based on the 1971 National Electrical Code and the 1979 edition of NFPA 70E.

It is proposing to update its standard to reflect changes in the 2002 NEC and 2000 edition of the NFPA 70E.

Comments to the proposed rule changes must be submitted by June 4, 2004. They can be reviewed at www.osha.gov and comments sent electronically to http://ecomments.osha.gov. 

Published in the May 2004 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

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