Cal-OSHA Referenced Citations

Hello again. I thought I might provide you all some more interesting 3-minute reads. In preparation to revise my company's Injury Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) I sought to do some research and find out in what frequency or context is the IIPP cited as a violation by companies in California. It's not a complete assessment, from the Cal-OSHA website the date range is August 25, 2020 to August 5, 2021 (see for yourself)

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/COVID19citations.html

What is interesting is that most of the references to Injury Illness Prevention Program are as per General Industry or CCR 8, Section 3203 and not CCR 8, Section 1509 (Construction). When IIPP is referenced as per CCR 8, Section 3203 much of the cited material pertains to element (a) which reads:

(a) Effective July 1, 1991, every employer shall establish, implement and maintain an effective Injury and Illness Prevention Program (Program). The Program shall be in writing and, shall, at a minimum:

(1) Identify the person or persons with authority and responsibility for implementing the Program.

(2) Include a system for ensuring that employees comply with safe and healthy work practices. Substantial compliance with this provision includes recognition of employees who follow safe and healthful work practices, training and retraining programs, disciplinary actions, or any other such means that ensures employee compliance with safe and healthful work practices.

(3) Include a system for communicating with employees in a form readily understandable by all affected employees on matters relating to occupational safety and health, including provisions designed to encourage employees to inform the employer of hazards at the worksite without fear of reprisal. Substantial compliance with this provision includes meetings, training programs, posting, written communications, a system of anonymous notification by employees about hazards, labor/management safety and health committees, or any other means that ensures communication with employees.

Of the businesses that were cited using CCR 8, Section 3203 most involved inspections related to Serious Injury or Death of an employee and a small number related to complaints (most likely from employees). You might tell yourself, my business has an IIPP were good - most of these cited California businesses also had a written IIPP and yet they were still fined and in many cases the proposed fines ranged from $10,000 for general violations to $50,000 for serious violations (which is often due to death as an outcome). The question to ask yourself, with those that have a written IIPP, is our "IIPP established, implemented and effective?" This is the yard stick by which the OSHA Engineer will ask themselves when they ask for your company's IIPP; they may also spend time interviewing employees and asking them if they know what the IIPP is and where to find it; they will also want to evidence that the IIPP is trained upon (training records) and discussed (safety meeting minutes and safety committee meeting minutes). In a prior article I wrote that the smallest (by page length) IIPP I ever saw was from my former employer at Los Angeles Metro. There their IIPP was like 5 pages long; Los Angeles Metro was cited by Cal-OSHA on December 11, 2020, in response to a fatality, and their proposed fine was $10,435. One of their citations was serious and referenced CCR 8, Section 3203 (a). Metro's cited violation was that they "did not effectively identify or evaluate workplace hazards relating to SARSCoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19" and "did not effectively implement methods or procedures to correct unhealthy conditions, work practices, work procedures relating to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19." Metro and hundreds of other businesses in California were similarly cited by Cal-OSHA referencing CCR 8, Section 3203 (Injury Illness Prevention Program) violations.