Employer Responsibilities

Employer Responsibilities

Under §396, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), employers have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace. This is a short summary of key employer responsibilities:

• Provide a workplace free from serious recognized hazards and comply with standards, rules and regulations issued under the OSH Act.

• Examine workplace conditions to make sure they conform to applicable HIOSH standards and incorporated OSHA standards.

• Make sure employees have and use safe tools and equipment and properly maintain this equipment.

• Use color codes, posters, labels or signs to warn employees of potential hazards.

• Establish or update operating procedures and communicate them so that employees follow safety and health requirements.

• Employers must provide safety training in a language and vocabulary workers can understand.

• Employers with hazardous chemicals in the workplace must develop and implement a written hazard communication program and train employees on the hazards they are exposed to and proper precautions (and a copy of safety data sheets must be readily available). See the OSHA page on Hazard Communication.

• Provide medical examinations and training when required by HIOSH standards and OSHA standards.

• Post, at a prominent location within the workplace, the HIOSH poster informing employees of their rights and responsibilities.

• Report to the HIOSH all:
  • work-related fatalities within 8 hours, and
  • all work-related inpatient hospitalizations, all amputations, all losses of an eye, or excess property damage of $25,000 as a result of work-related incident within 24 hours.

• Keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses. (Note: Employers with 10 or fewer employees and employers in certain low-hazard industries are exempt from this requirement. See §12-52.1, Hawaii Administrative Rules for more information)

• Provide employees, former employees and their representatives access to the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses (OSHA Form 300). On February 1, and for three months, covered employers must post the summary of the OSHA log of injuries and illnesses (OSHA Form 300A).

• Provide access to employee medical records and exposure records to employees or their authorized representatives.

• Provide to the OSHA compliance officer the names of authorized employee representatives who may be asked to accompany the compliance officer during an inspection.

• Not discriminate against employees who exercise their rights under the Act. See OSHA’s “Whistleblower Protection” webpage.

• Post HIOSH citations at or near the work area involved. Each citation must remain posted until the violation has been corrected, or for three working days, whichever is longer. Post abatement verification documents or tags.

• Correct cited violations by the deadline set in the HIOSH citation and submit required abatement verification documentation.

• HIOSH encourages all employers to adopt a safety and health program. Safety and health programs, known by a variety of names, are universal interventions that can substantially reduce the number and severity of workplace injuries and alleviate the associated financial burdens on U.S. workplaces. Most successful safety and health programs are based on a common set of key elements. These include management leadership, worker participation, and a systematic approach to finding and fixing hazards. OSHA’s Safe and Sound page contains more information.