From CBIA News, December 2002

Are your employees equipped for safety?

Even employers of one must provide personal protective equipment 

Let’s say one of your workers uses welding equipment that emits intense light and heat. Or, you have an employee who works near heavy equipment that could potentially fall and injure her foot. Or perhaps you employ a medical technician who handles chemicals that could cause skin irritations.

If you have even one employee who faces these or other workplace hazards, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that you protect them from harm. 

OSHA recommends using engineering controls or changes in work processes to eliminate hazards. But if those actions aren’t feasible or sufficient, you must provide personal protective equipment (PPE) and train employees to use it. PPE includes things like goggles, safety glasses, hard hats, safety shoes, gloves, vests and earplugs that protect employees from injuries or illnesses resulting from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical or other workplace hazards.

If you realize you need to provide protective equipment, OSHA suggests setting up a PPE program describing how you will:

• assess each employee’s work space and work processes to identify hazards,

• select appropriate personal protective equipment,

• communicate your selection decisions to employees,

• train employees to use and care for the equipment,

• enforce the use of the equipment, and

• determine the equipment’s effectiveness in preventing injury or illness.

A PPE training program should teach employees when to use personal protective equipment, what kind of equipment to use, how to properly use and maintain the equipment, and the limitations of personal protective equipment.

You will find a helpful publication, “Assessing the Need for Personal Protective Equipment: A Guide for Small Business Employers,” on OSHA’s Web site at http://www.osha.gov/Publications/osha3151.pdf. The guide tells how to set up a PPE program, explains when particular types of PPE are needed, gives checklists and tables to help with PPE selection, and provides other information.

OSHA’s Web site also offers a PPE fact sheet at http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/ppe-factsheet.pdf.

For a general overview of PPE, visit http://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3077/osha3077.html.

You may also want to attend CBIA’s Safety & Health Roundtable program on “How to Conduct a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Assessment and Implement PPE Policies at Your Company,” on March 20, 2003. The price of the program is $60. For more information, call CBIA’s registrar at 860–244–1900 or send an 
e-mail to registrar@cbia.com. 

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