OSHA speaks a great deal for the safety of the general public, customers and all others who enter the working premises. Restaurants offer a unique set of circumstances referred to as “shared space” or “common areas.” Therefore, OSHA compliance impacts everyone entering restaurant premises even more so than in other industries.
Understanding OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
Not only are there restaurant industry standards in place to mitigate the chances of hot coffee or tea spills, but there are also OSHA guidelines specific to the restaurant industry in regard to hot beverages and food, and they are there to ensure the safety of guests as well as employees. With the OSHA rules, the “ignorance of the law is not an affirmative defense of the law” will seal a coffee burn lawsuit into history.
What is OSHA?
The short answer is that OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This agency is responsible for the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) — the primary law of the land as it pertains to workplace safety and health across the United States of America and its territories.
In my opinion it is the greatest safety and health-based program in existence anywhere in the world today. Of note, most countries having nothing at all pertaining to workplace safety and the ones that do, for the most part, have very little that even moderately resembles what we have here in the United States.
The OSH Act and the History Behind It
After nearly a century of state and federal governments attempting to mitigate workers’ exposure to hazards, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act).
The Act was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 29, 1970, and it became the primary federal law which governs occupational safety, health and security in the private sector and federal government of the United States of America and its controlling territories — including, but not limited to, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam.
OSHA Standards Fall into Four Categories
OSHA standards fall into four categories:
1) Agriculture
2) Construction
3) Maritime
4) General Industry.
Restaurants are part of the General Industry category; and, therefore, OSHA General Industry standards apply.
However, when a recognized hazard or dangerous condition from one of the other three categories becomes apparent within a restaurant industry workplace, the OSHA standard (or standards) pertaining to that particular hazard or dangerous condition may also apply to that restaurant workplace as well. All restaurants must abide by all recognized restaurant industry standards — whether they are specifically referenced by OSHA, or recognized by any other industry, or not.
In other words, if a condition is considered to be dangerous or hazardous in any industry other than the General Industry – such as on a farm or construction site, for example – and the same or a similar type of dangerous or hazardous condition exists in your restaurant but OSHA does not speak directly to that particular condition in its standards for General Industry, then the OSHA standard (or standards) that applies to that dangerous or hazardous condition for the other industry may also apply to the subject restaurant.
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