Friday, October 06, 2023
NFPA 70E 2024 105.3 (B) Employee Responsibility. The employee shall comply with the safety-related work practices and procedures provided by the employer.
ENHANCED CONTENT FROM THE HANDBOOK Worker Alert. For there to be an effective safety culture, you must incorporate the provided training, practices, and procedures. Taking shortcuts, skipping steps, or failing to don protective gear are risky decisions that lie with you, not your employer. You should work to improve safety by providing effective feedback on the training, practices, and procedures. OSHA Connection — Public Law 91-596, “Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970” SEC. 5.(b) Duties. Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this Act, which are applicable to his own actions and conduct.
NFPA 70E is not just about the actions an employer took before an incident investigation. NFPA 70E is about preventing workers from becoming injured. Regardless of an employer’s electrical safety plan, it is the employee who has the biggest impact on their electrical safety. Employers are required to provide safety-related work practices and training to their employees. The employer must teach all employees to be aware of the hazards and their actions and should instill in the employees a sense of self-discipline. An employer must also train the employees to perform tasks, recognize the hazards associated with those tasks, and understand the potential injuries that can be caused by those hazards, as well as how to protect themselves from those hazards.
Employees are responsible for implementing each of these safety practices into their work. An employer may train, audit, and retrain employees, but it is the employee who will make decisions and take actions that could result in injury. Employees have a responsibility to know their limitations — only they can determine if they are truly qualified to safely perform a task.
The above is a direct quote from NFPA 70 2024 Article 105.B. It is critical that we understand that both the Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace and OSHA require that employees take responsibility for their actions. E Light must establish safety procedures and policies and provide PPE and safety gear. We are also responsible for supervising and doing inspections. You are responsible for knowing these procedures and policies, looking them up, asking questions of you are not 100 percent certain and following those procedures and policies. All of E Light Policies and procedures are found on elightinformation.com under the Safety, Health, Environmental Policy (SHEP) page. The SHEP is divided up by categories on that page to make it convenient to find the information you need. Also, all of our Journeyman electricians and supervisors have direct access to NFPA 70E, the Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace, on their phones and can look up both the requirements and any additional comments we have added for clarification of our policies in that way. If you have a question about it and you are not a journeyman, then find a journeyman or supervisor and ask them to look it up for you. We have to work together to be safe. We will do our part, please do yours. My grandfather used to tell me: "Knowledge is Power", I have learned in my life by observation the truth of that statement. Take the power of your safety into your hands, learn the procedures, learn the hazards and how to avoid them. We often brag that we electricians are the most educated and smartest skilled trade. Let's make that more than just a brag.
Ted " Smitty" Smith
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