OSHA NY Dairy LEP

The New York State dairy industry has learned that, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) is implementing a Local Emphasis Program (LEP) that will focus on random, unannounced compliance inspections at New York State dairy farms starting July 2014.

OSHA can inspect certain businesses based on four priorities:

  1. Imminent danger
  2. Catastrophes and fatal accidents
  3. Complaints and referrals
  4. Programmed inspections

While farms subject to regulation can be inspected under any one of these OSHA priorities, the upcoming focus on New York State dairy farms is related to item 4: Programmed inspections. Farms that fit the following criteria could be subject to a LEP inspection:

  • Farms that have had more than 10 total employees, not including immediate family members, at any time in the past 12 months preceding the day an inspector shows up (1 part time employee is equal to 1 full-time employee)

NYCAMH is now part of the New York OSHA Work Group which was formed in the fall of 2013. Other members of the work group include Cornell PRO-DAIRY, Northeast Dairy Producers Association (NEDPA), New York Farm Bureau, and Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE). The work group has created a set of materials to assist producers in becoming more compliant with OSHA regulations.

The following links will provide you with access to these downloadable materials in PDF format.

OSHA LEP Regional Notice for New York: View

OSHA LEP Training Binder: This farm safety training document was developed using generally accepted safety standards from safety organizations, governmental and industry sources. The materials in this document will guide you in each of the OSHA "Dairy Dozen" focus areas: manure storage facilities and collection structures, dairy bull and cow behavior/worker positioning, electrical systems, skid-steer loader operation, tractor operation, guarding of Power-Take-Offs, guarding of other power transmission and functional components, hazardous energy control while performing servicing and maintenance on equipment, hazard communication, confined spaces, horizontal bunker silos, and noise. View: OSHA LEP Training Binder

Farm Safety Checklist: The farm safety checklist is a complete checklist that can be used to conduct a self-administered audit. View: Farm Safety Checklist

OSHA Record Keeping and Reporting Standards:

On September 11, 2014, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a final rule requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or a single employee suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The rule went into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction. Under this revised rule, employers will be required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within 8 hours, and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Previously, OSHA's regulations required an employer to report only work-related deaths and/or incidents requiring hospitalizations of three or more employees. Reporting single cases of hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule.

All employers covered by OSHA, and even those who are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records (small farms with 10 or less employees and/or no temporary labor camp), are required to comply with OSHA's new severe injury and illness reporting requirements. For more information on OSHA's record keeping regulation, visit: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping2014/records.html. To assist employers in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA is developing a web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to the phone reporting options.

There are three options available for reporting these unfortunate incidents:

  1. By telephone to the 24-hour OSHA hotline (1-800-321-OSHA or 1-800-321-6742).
  2. By telephone to the OSHA Area Office nearest to the site of the work-related incident.
  3. Electronically, using the event reporting application that will soon be located on OSHA's website https://www.osha.gov/report_online/

OSHA has announced a new rule, which takes effect January 1, 2017. This new regulation will require certain employers to electronically submit injury and illness data that they are already required to record on their OSHA Injury and Illness, paper-based forms. OSHA claims that, having this data will enable it to use its enforcement and compliance assistance resources more efficiently. Some of the data will also be posted to the OSHA website. OSHA believes that public disclosure of workplace injury and illness data will encourage employers to improve workplace safety and provide valuable information to workers, job seekers, customers, researchers and the general public. More information about this new regulation can be found on OSHA's website at: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/finalrule/index.html

Template bi-lingual safety training roster: All training needs to be documented with a training roster. This link takes you to a downloadable roster form: View: Safety Training Roster

For more information or to contact us for a service

email: info@nycamh.org

Funding for this program is provided in part by the NY State Department of Health, the NY State Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Hazard Abatement Board, and NIOSH Grant 2U50 OH007542.