Guide to Unsafe Working Conditions for Pennsylvania Workers
At work, your employer gives you safety rules to follow, but your employer must also follow certain rules. Both Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry and the federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) write rules and regulations for workplace safety.
If a violation caused your injuries, you can often use it as grounds for a Workers’ Comp claim. You can also potentially report the employer’s dangerous workplace conditions to prevent further injury and keep other workers safe.
Call our Certified Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Lawyers for help with your potential injury case today by calling (267) 651-7945.
What Are OSHA’s Workplace Safety Rules?
OSHA writes workplace safety rules that affect many different industries and workers. These rules typically keep workers safe by creating rules for the following kinds of issues:
- Personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements for hard hats, respirators, eye protection, ear protection, etc.
- Worksite safety rules for handrails, surfaces, buildings, ventilation, housekeeping, etc.
- Temporary facilities requirements
- Lunch, bathroom, and other break requirements
- Worker training
- Material storage
- Emergency/fire preparedness
- Ladders, scaffolding, and climbing requirements
- Machinery and vehicle standards
- Maintenance requirements
- Chemical and noise exposure
- Medical and first aid responses
- ETC.
On top of this, there are rules for reporting incidents, recordkeeping, investigation of incidents, and how to treat workers after an injury. These help prevent future or repeat incidents, block retaliation for violation reporting, and help OSHA gather workplace safety statistics.
What Industries Does OSHA Regulate?
OSHA regulations typically fit into four industry categories:
- “General Industry”
- Construction
- Maritime
- Agriculture
Many of the regulations overlap and provide similar protections in different industries. For example, both general industry and construction have fire prevention rules dictating plans for storage and handling of flammable materials, but the construction rules are more detailed and specific.
Getting Workers’ Comp for a Workplace Injury from an OSHA Violation in Pennsylvania
If your injury happened at work, then you can typically file for Workers’ Compensation. OSHA rules help keep you safe at work, and any injury that happens because of a violation is typically work-related, allowing a Workers’ Comp claim.
When you are the victim of an OSHA violation at work, make sure to do the following:
- Document everything that happened
- Report your injury to your employer
- Get medical treatment to begin getting better and to document the injuries
- File a Workers’ Comp claim with the help of an experienced Pennsylvania Workers’ Comp lawyer.
In many cases, workplace injuries do not allow a lawsuit against your employer, meaning you can rely on Workers’ Comp coverage instead. However, lawsuits are often allowed against third parties, e.g., the manufacturer of defective safety gear.
Do You Need to Prove an OSHA Violation to Get Workers’ Comp?
Proving that your employer violated OSHA regulations can help show that your injury happened within the course of your work and that it wasn’t your fault. However, you do not actually need to prove an OSHA violation to get Workers’ Comp benefits.
Workers’ Compensation is a no-fault system, and it can pay benefits as long as your injury was work-related. Many injuries that qualify for Workers’ Comp coverage are even caused by the injured worker, yet still pay full benefits.
Ultimately, even when a worker is the one who caused their own injury, it can still trace back to unsafe work conditions. For example, if an employer set up unsafe scaffolding and you climbed it anyway, you could both share a level of blame for the accident. However, that does not reduce or block your Workers’ Comp benefits.
How to Report an OSHA Violation as a Worker
Whether there was an OSHA violation or not shouldn’t make a difference in whether your employer owes you Workers’ Comp payments, but reporting the violation can help protect your coworkers and future workers from the same dangers that injured you.
Reporting Hazards to Employer
You should usually start with a report to your employer. They are in the best position to fix the problems and make things safe quickly. Telling your supervisor or another manager or foreperson what you noticed can help address the issue quickly.
Filing a Report as a Worker
Employers are actually required to report severe injuries and issues to OSHA themselves, but you can also take the initiative as a worker to report your employer’s safety problems. To do this, you can simply fill out a form online.
If you have an emergency, OSHA requests that you instead call them at 1-800-321-OSHA.
What Happens Next?
OSHA will take in reports and investigate as soon as they can. This may lead to inspections and follow-up investigations. OSHA can even issue shut-down notices and force your employer to get things back up to safety standards if a violation is found. Serious, willful violations can even result in fines.
Do I Need to Reveal My Identity to Make an OSHA Report?
OSHA requires you to give your name and contact info when making a report. You also have to sign the report, and false statements can be punished. However, they do not have to report your name back to your employer.
OSHA also needs your name and contact info so they can follow up with you as part of their investigation. Getting more information might help them locate and fix the issue more quickly.
So, while you typically cannot make an anonymous report, you can ask OSHA to keep your name private to keep you safe from potential retaliation by an employer. In any case, such retaliation is typically illegal.
Can I Be Fired for Making an OSHA Report?
OSHA can keep your name from your employer, helping protect you from any retaliation. However, determined employers might retaliate anyway.
Whistleblower protections give you a route to report retaliation and get these illegal firings overturned. Even so, your employer might try to come up with pretextual excuses for firing you.
In any case, they cannot use the fact that you filed a Workers’ Comp claim as grounds for firing you, either. The fact that you legitimately cannot do the job while injured might allow them to let you go, but they cannot fire you in retaliation for making legal claims/reports.
Can I Report Dangerous Workplace Conditions to the State?
Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry also writes workplace safety regulations under the “General Safety Law” and takes complaints about unsafe work conditions. A form for this complaint can be found here.
Call Our Workers’ Compensation Lawyers in Pennsylvania Today
For help getting compensation after an injury at work, call Cardamone Law’s Philadelphia Workers’ Compensation lawyers at (267) 651-7945.
