OSHA Guidance
After a 20-plus-year hiatus, OSHA broke the silence with a new release to employers and employees regarding their approach to electrical safety. OSHA clarified existing requirements as well.
This release has separate guidance documents for employers and employees. Here are the individual links:
Employers
The article is thirteen pages long and covers the following topics:
- Worker participation
- Hazard Identification and Assessment, including:
- Limited and Restricted boundaries (never before mentioned in the OSHA 1910.300 series)
- Arc Flash boundary
- Hazard Identification, including:
- Administrative Controls
- PPE for arc flash and shock
The section on hazard identification highlights specific items that employers must consider when addressing electrical hazards. This guidance gets amazingly specific, more so than existing guidance in the 1910.331-1910.335 regulations.
Specifically, OSHA targets the following (among other things):
- Faulty/malfunctioning equipment
- Inadequate maintenance
- Unauthorized modifications/alterations
- Lack of proper warning systems (signs/labels, etc.)
The article goes into arc flash calculation methods, equipment working conditions, and the hierarchy of controls. It also includes detailed graphics.
Get to Know Electrical Safety Requirements
If you haven’t read through the release, we recommend you read it and take it in, as this really puts a fantastic, although many years overdue, focus on real-world electrical safety requirements and proper approaches to reduce the number of incidents of shock and arc flash injuries, as well as the completely unacceptable fatalities seen every year in the United States.
As always, feel free to contact e-Hazard for any of your electrical safety and/or arc flash needs. We strive to serve and provide solutions to your needs in this area.
As my automatic email signature states, let’s all work hard to “not get shocked, not get burned!”
This publication of this information is quite startling to me. OSHA has revised 1910.269 to include arc flash issues. They have done nothing to revise 1910 Subpart S to include arc flash issues. All they say about these publications is “This guidance is not a standard or regulation, and it creates no new legal obligations.” What we need for general industry is a standard or regulation that creates new legal obligations. NFPA 70E is published by a private organization and is not law. OSHA regulations are law and 1910 Subpart S needs revision to include arc flash issues.
I agree with you Al, but at least OSHA in their ‘Protecting Employees from Arc-Flash Hazards’ [OSHA 4472-11 2024] publication refers to the General Duty Clause pursuant to the OSH Act of 1970, which tends to imply they’re expecting employees to adopt NFPA 70E. They don’t say it directly, but one would be wise to read between the lines.
Here’s what page 2 of OSHA 4472-11 states in part “The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to comply with safety and health standards and regulations promulgated by OSHA or by a state with an OSHA-approved state plan. In addition, the Act’s General Duty Clause, Section 5(a)(1), requires employers to provide their employees with a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”
The publication also refers to NFPA 70E and includes 70E terms not found in any OSHA regulation, such as Restricted and Limited Approach Boundaries, Electrically Safe Work Condition, Arc Flash Boundary, Arc Flash PPE Categories, etc.
Certainly nowhere close to where they need to be, but at least they’re moving, albeit very slowly, in the right direction. But what doesn’t move at a snails pace in the federal government, other than wasting our tax dollars. 🙂
Oops! Just realized a fat finger typo in my previous post “… tends to imply they’re expecting employees to adopt NFPA 70E.” should have stated “… tends to imply they’re expecting EMPLOYERS to adopt NFPA 70E.”