Personal Protective Equipment in Construction

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Occupational Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>29 CFR Part 1926</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. OSHA-2019-0003]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1218-AD25</RIN> <SUBJECT>Personal Protective Equipment in Construction</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> OSHA is finalizing a revision to its personal protective equipment standard for construction to explicitly require that the equipment must fit properly. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective January 13, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Docket:</E> To read or download comments or other information in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> All comments and submissions are listed in the <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> index; however, some information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> copyrighted material) is not publicly available to read or download through that website. All comments and submissions, including copyrighted material, are available for inspection through the OSHA Docket Office. Contact the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-2500 (TDY number 877-889-5627) for assistance in locating docket submissions. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Press inquiries:</E> Frank Meilinger, Director, OSHA Office of Communications, telephone: (202) 693-1999; email: <E T="03">meilinger.francis2@dol.gov.</E> <E T="03">General and technical inquiries:</E> Vernon Preston, OSHA Directorate of Construction, telephone: (202) 693-2020; email: <E T="03">preston.vernon@dol.gov.</E> <E T="03">Copies of this</E> <E T="04">Federal Register</E> <E T="03">notice and news releases:</E> Electronic copies of these documents are available at OSHA's web page at <E T="03">https://www.osha.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Citation Method</HD> In the docket for the personal protective equipment in construction rulemaking, found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> every submission was assigned a document identification (ID) number that consists of the docket number (OSHA-2019-0003) followed by an additional four-digit number ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> OSHA-2019-0003-0002). In this final rule, citations to items in the docket are referenced by the last four digits of the Document ID Number. For example, Document ID number OSHA-2019-0003-0002 would be referenced as “Document ID 0002.” In a citation that contains two or more documents, the citations are separated by commas. In cases where a commenter submitted multiple documents, the attachment number is included after the Document ID. OSHA may also cite items that appear in another docket. When that is the case, OSHA includes the full document ID number for the corresponding docket ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> OSHA-2010-0034-4247). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. OSHA's PPE Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Rulemaking History</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Comments Received During the SIP-IV Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Summary and Explanation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Impact of Improperly Fitting PPE and the Need for an Explicit Requirement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Whether the Rule Would Effectuate the Purpose of the OSH Act Better Than Consensus Standards</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. The Appropriateness of the New Regulatory Text</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Differences Between General Industry, Maritime, and the Construction Industry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. The Adequacy of Guidance on PPE “Proper Fit” in Construction</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. OSHA Enforcement of PPE Fit Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Pertinent Legal Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Final Economic Analysis and Regulatory Flexibility Act Certification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Profile of Affected Establishments and Employees</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Costs of Compliance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Economic Feasibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Regulatory Flexibility Screening Analysis and Certification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Technological Feasibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. State Plans</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">X. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">XI. Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">XII. Protecting Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">XIII. Environmental Impacts</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> OSHA is finalizing revisions to its personal protective equipment (PPE) standard for construction, at 29 CFR 1926.95(c), to explicitly state that PPE must fit properly. This revision will align the language in the PPE standard for construction with the corresponding language in OSHA's PPE standards for general industry and shipyards and affirm OSHA's interpretation of its PPE standard for construction as requiring properly fitting PPE. Properly fitting PPE is a critical element of an effective occupational safety and health program. PPE must fit properly to provide appropriate protection to employees from workplace hazards. Improperly fitting PPE may fail to provide any protection to an employee, reduce the effectiveness of protection, present additional hazards, or discourage employees from using such equipment in the workplace. The Final Economic Analysis for this rulemaking demonstrates that this rule is economically feasible and will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. OSHA's PPE Requirements</HD> Section 6(b)(7) of the OSH Act, 29 U.S.C. 655(b)(7), authorizes OSHA to include requirements for protective equipment within its safety and health standards. Employees wear PPE to minimize exposure to hazards that can cause severe injuries and illnesses in the workplace. These injuries and illnesses may result from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other hazards. PPE includes many different types of protective equipment, such as hard hats, gloves, goggles, safety shoes, safety glasses, welding helmets and goggles, hearing protection devices, respirators, coveralls, vests, harnesses, and full body suits. OSHA has specific standards that address PPE in general industry, shipyard employment, marine terminals, longshoring, and construction. These standards require employers to provide PPE when it is necessary to protect employees from job-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities. With few exceptions, OSHA requires employers to pay for PPE when it is used to comply with an OSHA standard. In addition, the PPE standards for general industry (29 CFR 1910.132(d)(1)(iii)) and shipyard employment (29 CFR 1915.152(b)(3)) include a specific requirement that employers select PPE that properly fits each affected employee. OSHA's standard at 29 CFR 1926.95 sets out the requirements for PPE in construction. Section 1926.95(a) requires that all types of PPE must be provided, used, and maintained in a sanitary and reliable condition whenever the PPE is necessary due to workplace hazards. Section 1926.95(b) further requires that, even when employees provide their own PPE, the employer must assure its adequacy, including proper maintenance, and sanitation. Section 1926.95(c) provides that all PPE must be of safe design and construction for the work to be performed. Unlike the general industry and shipyards PPE standards, the current PPE construction standard at § 1926.95 does not include an explicit requirement that PPE properly fit each affected employee. PPE must fit properly to provide adequate protection to employees. If PPE does not fit properly, it can make the difference between an employee being safely protected, having inadequate protection, or being dangerously exposed. In some cases, ill-fitting PPE may not protect an employee at all, and in other cases it may present additional hazards to that employee and to employees who work around them. For example, sleeves of protective clothing that are too long or gloves that do not fit properly may make it difficult to use tools or operate equipment, putting the wearer and other workers at risk of exposure to hazards, or may get caught in machinery, resulting in injuries to the wearer such as fractures or amputations. The legs of protective garments that are too long could cause tripping hazards for the worker with the improperly fitting PPE and could also impact others working near that worker. Protective clothing that is too small may increase a worker's exposure to hazards by, for example, providing insufficient coverage from dangerous machinery or hazardous substances. The issue of improperly fitting PPE is particularly important for smaller construction workers, including some women, who may not be able to use currently existing standard-size PPE. Fit problems can also affect larger workers, and standard-size PPE does not always accommodate varying body shapes. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Rulemaking History</HD> The Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH) is a continuing advisory body established by statute (40 U.S.C. 3701 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) that provides advice and assistance to the OSHA Assistant Secretary on construction standards and policy matters related to construction. The issue of proper PPE fit in construction was discussed at the ACCSH meeting held on July 28, 2011. At th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 171k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━