By Scott Coghlan*
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (“OSHA”) recently released a new version of its “Job Safety and Health – It’s the Law!” poster, which informs employees of their rights and employers of their legal obligations concerning workplace safety. OSHA requires covered employers to display the poster in a conspicuous place where employees can see it. Covered employers include almost all private-sector employers.
The poster, which is available to download for free from OSHA’s website, informs employees of their rights and reminds employers of their obligations to provide a safe workplace. While employers are not required to replace an older version of the poster with the new version to meet their legal obligation to display a poster, OSHA made changes in the new version. The most important change is that employers are now required to report each work-related fatality, hospitalization, amputation, and loss of an eye to OSHA.
The poster informs employees of their rights regarding workplace safety and health. The poster also informs employers of their legal obligations concerning workplace safety and health. In particular, the poster has been updated to include employers’ notification obligations. The poster is also available in several other languages, including Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. While OSHA does not require employers to display the poster in any languages in addition to English, it does encourage them to put up a poster in Spanish. OSHA requires copies of the poster to be at least 8.5” by 14” and in size 10 type. To download a free copy of the poster and review OSHA’s requirements concerning display of the poster, employers should visit OSHA’s website at:
www.osha.gov/publications/poster.html.
*Scott Coghlan practices Workers’ Compensation Law. He has extensive experience counseling employers as to workplace safety and related issues. For more information about OSHA’s new poster or workers’ compensation law, please contact: Scott Coghlan | sc@zrlaw.com | 216.696.4441
