Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/1177710
palletcentral.com PalletCentral • September-October 2019 19 required to provide their employees with a place of employment that is "free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm." In a 2019 decision involving Integra (a health care company), OSHA's General Duty Clause citation, issued after a worker was killed by a third party, was upheld by the Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission, creating binding case law precedent. OSHA is now in the process of promulgating a specific workplace violence prevention rule, but it is limited in scope (currently) to the health care and social services sectors, which have significantly higher rates of violence from patients, clients and the public. The scope could be expanded to cover all employers, however, if the rule is not completed within the current administration. The U.S. House of Representatives has held workplace violence hearings during 2019 and is considering legislation to force OSHA to complete its rulemaking or else have a legislated interim rule take effect. Some OSHA state-plan states expect this to be addressed through injury and illness prevention program requirements. For example, Cal-OSHA adopted a workplace violence prevention rule for healthcare in 2017 and has other guidelines for other industries to use in avoiding General Duty Clause enforcement. See www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/worksecurity.html. Even Canada already has workplace violence prevention requirements for employers, including U.S. companies with operations there. The new Canadian regulations are set to come into force in conjunction with the harassment and violence amendments to the health and safety sections of the Canada Labour Code, which will be effective sometime in 2020. The regulations contain the following upcoming requirements for employers, which is not a bad checklist for U.S. employers to consider as they develop their own programs with an eye toward OSHA. Those provisions will require employers to: • Develop a workplace violence and harassment prevention policy which also accounts for external dangers, such as family violence and stalking, which could affect the workplace; • Conduct a workplace assessment that identifies risks of violence and harassment in the workplace and implement preventive measures to protect the workplace from these risks; • Develop and implement emergency procedures to be followed where an occurrence of workplace violence or harassment poses an immediate danger to employees; • Ensure training is delivered to members of the workplace (this includes training on crisis prevention, personal safety, and de-escalation techniques); iStockphoto/Radachynskyi