OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act), this is the Act came into existence in order to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for both working women and men. Under this Act, employee have some rights that are listed below.
Right to have safe and healthy workplace
Under OSHA every employee has the right to have the safe and healthy workplace and here the employer should provide the employees employment as well as the workplace of the employment free from recognized hazards which are are likely to cause or causing serious physical harm to employees or death, if the hazard can’t be removed, then protection must be provided. The safe and healthy workplace means the place that is free of hazards and workers are trained.
Right for training
Employees have the right for getting trained regarding the safety and health hazards and also the standards that an employer must follow. Employees can take the training required about the hazardous communication and apart from that other essential training includes, noise, confined spaces, lockout-tagout, personal protective equipment etc.
Right to information regarding illness and injuries in your workplace
An employer who have more than 10 employees should have a log regarding the work related injuries and illness of the workers that are resulting in the lost working-days, restricted work etc. under the OSHA recordkeeping rule. So, here the employee has the right for reviewing the present log as well as the stored logs past 5 years logs and the employer must provide that in the next workday itself.
Right to file a complaint with OSHA
As an employee of the organization, if you feel that the safety and health standards are violated or if any close danger situation exists in the workplace, you can make a complaint with OSHA in the website through writing or by the telephone to the nearest OSHA office. If you have any doubts regarding the complaints you may also call and know the violation OSHA laws and the process of the complaint.
Right for participating in OSHA inspection
When an OSHA inspection is done in your workplace you have the right to participate in it along with the representative accompanying the inspecting inspector. You also have the right for raising your doubts regarding the hazards or illness and discuss this issues, right for finding the inspection results, you can involve in the meetings related to inspection etc.
Right for hazard exposure and medical records
Employee has the right for examining and copy exposure and also medical records including the records of workplace monitoring or measuring the toxic substance. This helps the employee as it will make them to detect, prevent and treat occupational disease.
These are the major employee rights under OSHA. So, make sure that as an employee you are aware of this rights.
Other employee rights include:
- Right for knowing about the hazardous chemicals
- Right from complaining or requesting hazard correction from employer
- Right for freeing from retaliation for exercising health a safety right
- Responsibilities of workers