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OSHA Trying to "Protect" Telecommuters
DiabloQueen writes "MSNBC reports that OSHA says that employers are now responsible for home workstations.
Wonder how many people will try to get their employers to help pay for the ergonomically correct leather executive chair they must have?
" Interesting quandry - I don't think that employers should be responsible for accidents that happen in a telecommuter's home, but I do think they should help pay for ergonomic furniture and an appropriate working environment. What do you think? Is there a happy median?
Telecommuting is one of those fascinating aspects of life that one really has to sit down and think about for a second:
A) No commute? That's great! Except for the fact that you weren't being paid to commute in the first place, and that the time you commute is in excess of your original eight hour workday. So while you were losing hours of your time for work, it somehow got onto your "personal time".
B) Home conversion? Suddenly, work has far fewer square feet of space it requires to house its workers--they get some of the worker's home, for free! Maybe it's a room, maybe it's a bookshelf, maybe it's a desk, but there always ends up being one area of work controlled space. Again, this happens at the expense of the worker.
C) Predictable hours. Are people getting paid more to be available to check their email 24/7? It's one thing to stay at the office late, but you can only do this so much before you realize you're not spending any time at home. When there's a conduit to your office at any time, you work more hours because you can.
That being said, I love telecommuting, and do alot of development at work to make it possible, but I'm very clear on the fact that it can save companies millions while mainly giving back workers time that they weren't even getting paid for in the first place.
OSHA has rules regarding workstations that cost companies money but in the long run save employees much pain and misery. With all that the company gets out of having a worker stay at home, it's not unreasonable to expect a heavy telecommuter receive a computing environment that respects their health. Telecommuting should not be a way to escape ergonomic regulations.
Agree? Disagree?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
OSHA may just be trying to maintain its relevance in the face of a changing workplace, where less and less people are required to actually be present on company property in order to work. In a world where we are all wired to our wearables, able to work while walking down the street muttering subvocally to our wrist-PCs, OSHA may not have any mission, unless it redefines its own. This may be some of what this is about.
In any event, this entire thing has some disturbing connations, yet should not be dismissed out of hand. For one thing, does this give OSHA the authority to MANDATE what kind of furniture I have in my home. What if it clashes with what the interior decorator did? What if I simply don't want to wear a hard hat in the bathroom? Although toung in cheek, it should be lost on none of us that this is a rather aggressive extention of governmental authroity into our own homes, and I do not recall even being consulted about it, much less inviting them in.
Another rather grim ramification may be the chilling effect this has on telecommuting altogether. It is a daunting task for an employer to be responsible for safety and ergonomic comfort on their own premisis -- to require the same safety standards in all of the homes of each telecommuniter is simply untenable. Sorry, you'll have to risk the 40 minute drive through snow into the office -- we cannot be held responsible for the unsavory working conditions of your bed-room, which hasn't been cleaned in years.
Furthermore, it invites, even mandates, a rather intrusive involvement of the employer in the employee's homelife (in addition to yet another government beaurocracy). And what of the kid fresh out of college, living in a small rundown apartment which could not meet any standards to speak of? Disemploy them? Force them to move?
On the other hand, the danger of an employer using telecommuting as a way of dodging their own responsibility for maintaining a safe working environment, or putting the onus of such on the employee, cannot be entirely discounted either.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
OSHA has cited my company with 6 violations for a total of $50,000 in fines.
1. Shoeboy Industries provided its sole employee a dinner of canned beans - following which the atmosphere in Shoeboy's apartment became incapable of supporting human life.
2. Shoeboy Industries also provided Shoeboy with a discount transvestite prostitute. This caused Shoeboy to develop a worrying rash.
3. Shoeboy Industries frequently leaves cartons of Camels in Shoeboy's closet, thus encouraging his smoking habit.
4. Shoeboy Industries has failed to adequately clean the restroom of Shoeboy's apartment. As a result, the population of Shoeboy's shower curtain is agitating for a seat in the UN general assembly.
5. Shoeboy Industries has failed to provide Shoeboy with treatement for his syphilis induced madness.
6. Shoeboy Industries has left the decaying corpse of a marine biologist on Shoeboy's balcony for several weeks.
An OSHA representative stated that Shoeboy needed to be taught a lesson about his evil capitalist exploitation of himself.
--Shoeboy
I am not a lawyer, but:
I am deeply worried that the business response to OSHA setting telecommuting workplace standards will be to forbid telecommuting. If I ran a business, I would.
As a telecommuter, do I really want to have some portion of my home retooled every time I change employers or move from contract to contract (when I work for a consulting company) to bring my workstation in line with each employer's standards?
They simply should not do this unless the employer REQUIRES teclommuting. So long as telecommuting is comething I want (and believe me, I consider a day or more telecommuting to be an enormous benefit, ENORMOUS [I can't overstate this -- it is really, really ENORMOUS ]) and is permitted but not required by the employer, I should be able to specifically idemnify the employer from any responsibility for workplace injury, so long as the workplace my employer provides meets specifications.
I see this as potentially the death of telecommuting.
What word on this waiver possibility?
Check here for the Post's version.
http://www.washing tonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A955-2000Jan3.html
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
I telecommute from hotel rooms. Rooms rented by the Company, in fact. I also do lots of Company work on a Company laptop while flying on Company-paid air trips.
Seems like these are far more promising opportunities for OSHA: regulating business hotel accomodations, regulating laptop ergonomics, and regulating airline seating used for business travel. Just think of the fun they'll have with the FAA over seating standards.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm sitting in my dorm room at college, and I can tell you that these desks are far from ergonomic. At this point, I think that if your landlord provides a workspace, then it must be an ergonomic one.
Aside from that, in this college setting we cannot remove the furniture from the room. How, then, would my employer (if I were telecommuting) be able to pay for an ergonomic setting?
I think that this was inevitable; it revisits the distinction between a contractor/consultant and an employee.
An employee works as an extension of the employer. They are required to perform at an adequate, previously discussed level but are paid on a time (even salaried workers - they merely have a larger time increment than hourly) rather than work performed basis.
A consultant performs work for or on the behalf of a company, but they are professionals who work for themselves. The work produced is the basis for compensation, not the length of time which it takes to produce said work. (I know about time and materials contracts, btw, but the point is that you're compensated for the work you produce).
An employee, who is paid for time, therefore, is entitled to a proper working environment during that time. That is, wherever the work is performed. I haven't heard that occupational health and safety regulations were automatically suspended when an employee is out making a client call, for example. Why should they be suspended merely because the employee is working at a different but still acceptable location (in this case, his or her home)? The essence of this is that the home is an acceptable location to the employer; when they sanction work at home they acquire the responsibility to provide a proper work environment there, just like they couldn't send you down a mineshaft without a helmet.
A consultant produces work, and the contractual nature of the work means that they must provide for themselves or their subcontractors. They aren't subject to most occupational health and safety rules because of the nature of that employment - or, at least, the company tendering the contract is not responsible for conformation to those rules. The company employing the individual (in many cases themself or a small consultancy) is.
To sum this up: employees don't stop being employees just because they're working at a different site. The act of approving the home as a suitable worksite by a company makes them responsible for occupational injury there, just like it was any other jobsite - because it is just that, any other jobsite. They don't turn into ersatz consultants when they work from home, and employers which treat them like that will no doubt discover the error of their ways.
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
According to the MSNBC article, "Employers can be charged and fined by OSHA if they do not provide safe workplaces and employers are responsible for making any needed corrections."
So let's say I'm working at home for Company X. I have a few loose floorboards around the house that have been there long before I started working for Company X that I just never got around to fixing. I'm at my terminal doing some work, when I decide to get up and go to the fridge for a drink. Along the way, I step on one of these loose floorboards. I trip and sprain my ankle. So does this mean that Company X must pay to have the floorboards fixed, even though I knew of the problem long before I began working with Company X and neglected to fix them myself?
The MSNBC article further states that "employers are responsible for making sure an employee has ergonomically correct furniture, such as chairs and computer tables, as well as proper lighting, heating, cooling and ventilation systems in the home office." These new OSHA regulations are practically begging to be abused by people looking to get some home improvements done courtesy of their employer. So let's look at another situation....
I work at home for Company Y. I have an old air conditioner in my house (the kind that fits into a window). I've always wanted central air conditioning in my house, but I've never gotten around to having one put in. Now that OSHA mandates that Company Y is responsible for making sure I'm comfortable in my house, does this mean I can force Company Y to install central air conditioning in my home?
These new mandates from OSHA are going to cause more trouble than good down the road when work-at-home people complain that they want expensive ergonomic leather chairs, central air and heating, etc. Anyone think different?
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters