If finalized, the OSHA rule would hold distributors to standards to address extreme heat, including mandatory paid work breaks in some cases.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a rule that would hold distributors, manufacturers and other general industry and construction employers to new standards to address excessive heat in the workplace.
Under the proposed rule, which now awaits a 120-day comment period before moving toward finalization, employers would be required to create a plan to evaluate and control heat hazards.
At minimum, those plans would require a heat injury and illness prevention plan and response procedures, heat monitoring and record keeping and employee/supervisor training. Further requirements would be triggered as temperatures reach 80 degrees Fahrenheit (such as providing cool drinking water, break areas with cooling measures, paid rest breaks if needed and an acclimatization plan for workers returning from breaks), and then again as temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit (mandatory 15-minute rest breaks every two hours).
The rule, which OSHA officials said is a step toward a federal heat standard to prevent heat-related deaths, is expected to face pushback from industry groups and businesses that may have to make sweeping changes to their operations to comply with the blanket requirements.
Find out more about the proposed “Heat Injury and Illnes Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings” rule here.
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Vesna Brajkovic
Vesna Brajkovic is MDM’s Senior Editor, having joined the company in May 2023. She has more than seven years of experience as a B2B publication editor, having focused on the commercial trucking, railroad, transit, fleet maintenance, automotive aftermarket and aviation industries. Brajkovic most recently spent the past two-plus years as Managing Editor of Heavy Duty Trucking for Bobit Business Media — where she reported and edited news and features on the commercial trucking industry, managed eNewsletters and social media, coordinated print magazine production and developed content for events and multimedia such as podcasts and videos. She can be contacted at vesna@mdm.com.
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