By David Blane Until last month, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had nine National Emphasis Programs (NEP) on their books.  The agency has now added a tenth with a new NEP for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). NEPs are temporary programs that have traditionally focused the agency’s resources on particularly dangerous substances in the workplace and high-hazard industries, including chemical that pose a risk to human health such as lead, hexavalent chromium, and crystalline silica and high hazard industries such as shipbreaking, primary metals manufacturing, and trenching and excavating.

Applicability and Purpose

The new NEP will provide policies and procedures for protecting employees that work in high-hazard industries, such as hospitals or supermarkets, from contracting SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19 disease.  The program also identifies secondary industries that are covered including critical manufacturing, agriculture, some commercial facilities, and transportation and logistics. All levels of OSHA, federal, state, and regional, will be following this directive. The NEP formally lays out inspection components for OSHA’s inspectors to follow including:
      • site selection
      • inspection procedures
      • grounds for citation
      • follow up criteria
     
The ultimate goal of the NEP is to significantly reduce or eliminate worker exposures to SARS-CoV-2, and control the hazards in industries and worksites where employees have a high frequency of close contact exposures.  This will be accomplished through a combination of inspection targeting, outreach to employers, and compliance assistance.

Inspections

In each Region, the agency will be focusing its resources to perform a high percentage of in-person programmed COVID-19 inspections within the identified critical industries, amounting to approximately 1,600 inspections nationwide. Additional unprogrammed COVID-19-related inspections will be conducted at worksites from which the agency receives employee complaints or doctor referrals. OSHA anticipates the majority of the inspections will continue to occur in general industry, particularly in healthcare. This is based on current agency data which shows higher numbers of COVID-19-related complaints, referrals, and severe incident reports at these worksites.

Outreach

In addition to the enforcement, the agency will conduct nationwide outreach using public announcements and communications to media, stakeholders, and alliances.  These may consist of letters, news releases, seminars, posters, various online materials, and more.

Background

The Secretary of Labor issued this Directive in response to President Biden’s Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety which instructed OSHA to focus enforcement efforts related to COVID-19 on hazardous conditions that put the largest number of workers at serious risk and employers that engage in retaliation against employees who complain about unsafe or unhealthful conditions. The new OSHA Directive became effective on March 12, 2021 and will be in effect for no more than 12 months, unless canceled or extended by the agency. Up to this point, OSHA’s guidance on COVID-19 has included the following:
  • April 12, 2020, Interim Enforcement Response Plan for COVID-19 was issued.
  • May 26, 2020, Updated Interim Enforcement Response Plan for COVID-19 was issued.
  • March 12, 2021, additional changes to the Updated Interim Enforcement Response Plan were issued and shall remain in effect unless otherwise superseded by another OSHA Directive or updated pursuant to an emergency temporary standard per the Presidential Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety, January 21, 2021.
  • OSHA’s interim enforcement response plan memorandum provides instructions and guidance to Area Offices and compliance safety and health officers (CSHOs) for handling COVID-19-related unprogrammed activities (UPA), e.g., complaints, referrals, and severe incident reports.
 

Further Information

Cornerstone’s Health and Safety department has developed a program for industrial facilities to reduce workers’ exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace.  Contact us at info@corner-enviro.com or on our website https://www.cornerstone-ehs.com/contact-us/ for more information.
David Blane is a Senior Health and Safety Specialist.  He is a Certified Safety Professional by the Board of Safety Professionals.  He currently provides health and safety compliance auditing, program development, training, and industrial hygiene monitoring to Cornerstone’s industrial and construction sector clients.  Blane formerly served as an OSHA compliance inspector.  
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