Document emDkVqG08ejZkLLygM3Y5rBZe

2--The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 Inspection of facilities. The CO will take the time necessary to inspect all of the opera tions in the establishment The inspections have as their primary objective the enforce ment of the occupational safety and health standards as well as the enforcement of other promulgated regulations such as the posting of the OSHA poster (Fig 2-1) The CO will have the necessary instruments for checking certain items, such as noise lev els, certain air contaminants and toxic sub stances, grounding, and the like During the course of inspection, the CO will note any apparent violation of the standards and will normally record any apparent violation, in cluding its location, and any comments that he has regarding the violation He will do the same for any apparent violation of the general duty clause. His notes will serve as the basis of information for the area director for issuing citations or proposed penalties For these reasons, the employer representa tive should ascertain any apparent violations from the CO during the actual inspection of the facilities The employer representative should make notes identical to the CO's during the actual inspection so that he will have pre cisely the same information that the CO has It should be noted that the CO is only re quired to record apparent violations and is not required to present a solution or method of correcting, minimizing, or eliminating the violation OSHA, however, will respond to requests for technical information concerned with complying with given standards In such cases, the employer is urged to contact the regional or area office If, during the course of an inspection, the CO receives a complaint from an employee regarding a condition which is alleged to be in violation of an applicable standard, the CO, even though the complaint is brought to him via an informal process, will normally inspect for the alleged violation In the course of his normal inspection, the CO may make some preliminary judgments with respect to environmental conditions af fecting occupational health In such cases, he will generally use direct-reading instruments Should this occur, and if proper instrumenta tion is available, it would be prudent for the employer to have qualified personnel at the establishment make duplicate tests m the same area at the same time under the same conditions In addition, the employer repre sentative should again take careful notes on the CO's methods as well as the results If the inspection indicates a need for further in vestigation by an industrial hygienist, the CO will notify the Area Director who may assign a qualified industrial hygienist to investigate further If a laboratory analysis is required, samples are sent to OSHA's laboratory m Salt Lake City and the results will be re ported back to the Area Director At the completion of the inspection, but pnor to the beginning of the closing confer ence, the employee representative is usually excused. Closing conference. Upon completion of the inspection the CO will confer with the employer or his representative. Again, the employer's safety personnel should be present at the closing conference It is at this time that the CO will advise the employer and his representatives of all conditions and practices which may constitute a safety or health viola tion. He should also indicate the applicable section or sections of the standards which may have been violated The CO wdl normally advise the employer that citabons may be issued for alleged viola tions and that penalties may be proposed for each violation Administratively, the author ity for issuing citabons and proposed penalbes rests with the Area Director or his representabve The employer will also be informed that citabons will fix a reasonable time for abate ment of the violabons alleged. The CO will attempt to obtain from the employer an esbmate of the time he feels would be required to abate the alleged violabon and take such estimate into considerabon when recommend ing a bme for abatement The CO should also explain the appeal procedures with re spect to any citabon or any nobce of a pro posed penalty Followup inspections. Followup mspecbons will always be made for those situabons involving imminent danger or where citabons have been issued for serious, repeated or will ful violabons Followup inspections for all other cases will be conducted at the discrebon 36