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OSHA Reverses Home Worker Advisory
Masloki sent it: an article on prodigy-news that says "Facing a barrage of criticism, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman today withdrew a federal interpretation letter saying that companies' normal workplace safety obligations also apply to employees who do their work at home." That's one OSHA regulatory attempt that certainly didn't last very long; we only got the word about the proposed regulation yesterday.
Who? :)
The company should be responsible for providing an ergonamic environment for telecommutors working on equipment the company loans out. They should not be responsible for other dangers.
Telecomuting takes cars off the road. Workers who stay put consume less energy than those who must travel to a workplace, even by commuter train, the Liberal's sacred cow. Less energy consumption means less pollution, so why hasn't the EPA weighed in on the telecommuting issue? Why doesn't the EPA go beat up OSHA? Yeah. That'd be something to watch.
Republicans, Democrats... They're all the same. They want things to stay the same - they want to take ever iota of freedom we still have, and ensure that every bit of money we earn is taken from us, because of course, Big Brother knows whats best for us
Screw the lot of them. Vote Liberatarian!
There should be some protection for employees. I'm not saying that they should rebuild the house. But they should maybe send out someone to check the ergonomics (maybe the same person who checks it in the office?).
RSIs also cost companies money. Lost time from work, surgery, medical treatment, etc. An RSI is cheaper to prevent than to treat.
RSI injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!
Why in the world are you working for such a fsked-up company? Why in the world do you think it's MY (read: the government)'s problem?
The operative word there is "is". The economy is not magic. It can't levitate forever.
Recessions and even depressions can and will occur in the future. And they don't require specific catastrophic events (like Y2K), either, although they can precipitate sharp changes.
Certainly, the arrival of the information economy has successfully extended the current expansion cycle, but There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Personally, I think we'll see things erode significantly with the Baby Boomer retirement cycle, which should peak in about 10-15 years.
most sane people appear to disagree with you. Keep the government OUT of my house, thank you very much.
Makes me wonder what other policies might be lurking on government Web sites. On a related note, Here is an IDEA: The local area networks of governments (city, county, state, national) should be publicly readable networks. NO reason not to and every reason to make it open to the public.
Go work somewhere else, if you're not able to negotiate acceptable telecommuting work conditions with your present employer. This is a (relatively) free country, right?
People like you seem to want to turn everything in sight into a Federal entitlement. Somebody actually has to pay for your looting, remember.
"Information wants to be free ..." If everyone could see movies for free, studios would had no incentive to spend $$ to make them, and you would never have heard of James Dean.
Is manditory telecommuting something that happens often?
/. are far too quick to jump all over the government. Companies will do ANYTHING they can get away with.
Yup. My company just outed a bunch of engineers because it want to close down some office space it was renting. Packed 'em up and sent 'em home. They put together a far-less-than adaquate package to pay for a home office setup while they were at it, too.
They are also in the process of setting up a some 'hotel' space where the employees can sit if they have to come in for a face-to-face meeting.
What is scary is that part of the reasoning was that the company is getting socked with OSHA regs to put in ergo furniture - RSI is their #1 on the job industry. I bet the company is doing this to cut down on their ergo updating costs too.
People on
now you've got it. Movies will be made by people who hold other "real" jobs. MOST actors don't get millions for each movie they make anyway, so quality isn't going to change.
Ure stil a looser.
So why do you still work at a company that shows so little respect towards its employees? This only shows what you stand for. A decent human would've quit.
OSHA should stay out of the home. I viewed this as just another attempt by this administration to insinuate itself as far as it can into every aspect of our lives. BUT I would like to see OSHA require that where a company provides or pays for equipment used at home, the company must initially provide ergonomic equipment. What the worker does with it at home after that is the worker's problem.
Copying movies, music, software, strong crypto methods, books, and other data is 100% legal in many nations. Son May Records in Taiwan makes a living doing this and they are a legitimate, locally licensed, pay taxes, etc. business. In digital format, all of these things can be posted to a web/ftp site. How can IP be enforced? Blockade all net traffic to non-WIPO nations? Inspect all IP packets at national borders before granting passage? Like with OSHA and telecommuting, to do so would effectively kill the internet. So why not just to set all information free. As James Dean said, "Nobody owns the fucking words man."
What's funny is that OSHA had this notice on their website since November 15th, but it broke only when the Washington Post ran a story on it.
This entire thing is sort of scary, especially with Alexis Herman at the helm. Now, she's seeing a "national dialogue" about whether or not this is a good idea.
Personally, it's a dumb idea. I work on a train, in a car, and other places. So, does OSHA get to deal with that as well?
See! the system does work. Just because someone comes up with a dunderhead idea, doesn't mean we can't change it.
If what you say is true, then GNU's software library should be empty. Yet, it isn't?! Yet, people don't get paid to contribute to GNU. MS's biggest rival is an OS built by people who, by your logic, shouldn't have any incentive to code. You're just soooo right, aren't you? If movies could be copied freely, they would still get made, JUST LIKE GNU SOFTWARE .
For the most part I agree with suggestion. However, the key has to be whether telecomuting is voluntary. The concern most cited in support of the OSHA letter was manufacturing companies that might force you to work at home, perhaps doing a task that was inherently unsafe. This would free the employer from making their workplace safe.
The OSHA letter essentially said you can't do this. That the home workplace would also have to comply. This conclusion is logical as it otherwise creates a loophole big enough to drive a truck through.
Your proposal would still allow this loophole by letting an employer set up a compliant workplace, but then still essentially forcing workers to complete tasks at home.
If the worker is being made to complete the work at home (rather than volunteering) then the employer should be ensuring that the home workplace is also OSHA compliant.
There is no flaw in the idea, only lack of details. More details: All government networks, directories, and files should be publicly readable (not writeable) through the Web. Those files that are confidential should be encrypted(because they should already be encrypted). I have worked for two Alachua County, FL, departments. I was amazed at what was legally public information but effectively secret information.
Can you copy these freely? How can the authors get compesated if you use their stuff but don't pay them? Well... it's already happening. It would happen for movies too.
Your argument might be true at first because a large body of formerly proprietary media would instantly be freely available to copy. Down the line, if "creators become fewer" as you say, what would there be to copy? Nothing? But people need software, music, entertainment, so.... software, music, and entertainment would still get created. Look at Linux. I can download it for free. Repackage and sell it for free. Build a business on it (Red Hat) for free. The very existance of GNU, FSF, Open Source, Linux, BSD, invalidates your theory.
Hmm, if schools give out free condoms in schools, why not free Vaseline for the sexually underprivileged? This is an outrage! Free Vaseline for all!!
Why not just hire on your employees that work at home as independent contractors? Then they are their own employer and you are not responsible for the home office.
OSHA's reversal equals an admission of guilt that they KNEW they were overstepping their limits in the first place and just trying to see if they could get away with it. This and the Ramsey/Supercircuits raids and other similar events are concrete proof that the lameduck Clinton Administration is trying like mad to erode as much freedoms and destroy this country as much as they can and as fast as they can before the Republicans are elected back into power this fall and begin their witchhunts.
Realistically, how many people telecommute because they are forced to, not because they choose to? My guess would be very, very few considering how often I hear the lament, "If only I could telecommute..." In 99% of the cases, an employee is going to have the clear option of coming to the office and sitting at a regular desk in a regular cube/office/whatever, with all the standard OSHA-regulated stuff. It is by CHOICE that the employee decides to go home. It is by CHOICE that the employee is leaving the "safe" environment provided by the employer. It's a tradeoff. Take it or leave it. Everything has its price. Myself, I'd just like the choice of telecommuting, but the nature of my job prevents it.
I'd be willing to pull up a lawn chair and set a barrel on fire in my front lawn in the name of solidarity for my Linux brothers, and pay dues so the union head haunchos can go to Hawaii and have conferences for three hours a day on how to resolve it.
Posted by patg:
sounds like "foot in mouth" situation. "uh, we really didn't think about what we said..."
I'm SURE this is not going to be OSHA's last word on the subject.
My personal take on it is that if the employer provides you with a perfectly acceptable place to work at their workplace, and does not explicitly nor implicitly encourage working from home, but merely PERMITS it under certain circumstances, then they should not be liable for much.
On the other hand, if there is any kind of requirement or pressure for you to work at home, then they SHOULD be liable. Telecommuting shouldn't be an out for companies who don't want to pay for safe working environments.
As many people pointed out, the true lawsuit looming is not by home-based telecommuters, but workers who spend all their time on the road. Working in cramped spaces on planes, on miniscule hotel desks, in any corner that can be found at client sites, on some crappy laptop computer that is seriously un-ergonomic.
something HAS to be done when 20 Million people work this way, and yes, it needs to be regulated.
Just because lots of people work from home does NOT mean it has to be regulated. OSHA has its value, and its place, but the home is not that place. Government is there to protect people from each other, not to protect people from themselves. If someone wants to have an ergonomically incorrect home, such is their right. This isn't the same situation as, say, an office building, where the location/equipment is provided by the employer and you have to work there. If the employee choses their home over an ergonomically safe workplace, then that is their choice and the government has no business causing trouble. I think OSHA realized they'd just be creating a mess, rather than actually helping workers, and so decided not to go with the proposal.
If OSHA were to do what they had proposed, it would have been bad for both employees and employers. Employees would have to have their homes invaded to make sure everything was ergonomically correct, etc. Employers would have to do these checks to prevent frivolous litigation, and nobody would be any better off.
I wonder where all the pressure came from. Citizens? Or the business lobby? Given the fact that the two politicians that were quoted were Republicans, it must have been mostly from the business side. If you doubt corporate power, getting this blown away in one day should make you think otherwise.
The pressure probably came from both. I know if I were telecommuting (which is a distinct possibility once I graduate from college) I wouldn't want to have to deal with all sorts of regulatory crap just so I could work in my own home. I'm sure businesses didn't like the idea either.
And on a tangential note, the fact that the politicians were Republicans does not mean that the pressure was from business. Many Republicans would oppose it simply as part of their opposition to excessive government regulation.
Oh, and just FYI it wasn't blown away in one day. It's been several weeks since the proposal was put out.
Yes, but basically this reversal means that the company has no limits on what they can do. They can stick you with equipment they could never allow you to use in the workplace.
There is a balance here as far as where the fiscal responsibilities lie for work-at-home employees. In my experience, full-time (or mostly full-time) people who work at home have gotten PC's from their employer, or the employer has opted to buy them laptops so they can use them at home and in the office. I've never heard of the company spinging for furniture.
I think what's needed here is a happy medium. Anything that the employer povides to the employee should meet OSHA standards. That means if the employer gives you a PC, the PC must meet whatever OSHA standards there might be for ergonomics (which, I think, is not much). If the employer simply pays for you to buy a PC, they must supply you with enough money to buy a PC that meets OSHA standards. If you, on your own, decide to buy a bed of nails with lousy neck support to use as chair while using said PC, that's your business. If the employer gives you crummy machinery that explodes, killing your cat, they should be held liable.
While I think the work-at-home movement is good, I do tend to worry about a resurgence of the "piecework" problems that we had in the late 19th century. People (mostly women) were expected to do ungodly amounts of work, out of their own home, under poor conditions with few resources. While, in this economic boom and labor shortage we probably won't see much of that, I can see a future where, if you want to work, you'll have to supply your own equipment and your own space to do your job.
I think there's a need for Government funding in helping telecommuters and freelancers get support in acquiring a safe work environment at home. Why can't you pay for this yourself? Are you really that helpless/stupid that you can't take responsibility for your own health? Do you really need the government to be your personal babysitter? I don't think this is an issue the government should be involved with at all. Telecommuters are big boys and girls, and they should take responsibility for their own ergonomics. Maybe it's too much to ask for damages with carpal syndrome, severe caffeine addiction, monitor radiation tan and severe loss of hair, but hey. How exactly is any of this the fault of anyone other than yourself? You chose to work the hours you did, and if you were concerned about the above, you should have worked fewer hours or changed jobs. Unless you had an explicit agreement with your employer that you would be compensated for the above, I don't see any reason for you to receive damages.
I just read the print version of the WSJ earlier today, and their take on it was that Democratic party politics and favors owed to labor unions had a big factor in the issuing of the ruling.
How in the world can unions organize at-home workers (where would they go if they were on strike? to the office?). I have to run right this instant, but can someone find and put up a link to the WSJ story/editoral? I think it adds some insight into the political code being executed here.
I think that safety at home, if just as important as safety at work. If someone injures them self at home, while doing work for their employer, then the employer should be held responsible... same as if he/she were at work. I think that the biggest issue is what changes should be made. Work place should be safe for many people, while the home is a more comfortable environment. I don't think that every rule that applies to working in the office should apply to working at home, but a company should be responsible for all of its employees.
I need to do my laundry
Please send $3 to:
Jon Allen
p.o. box 308142
I'm not asking for government to come to my house and eat dinner with me... I'm asking that my longterm work related pains be taken care of. It doesnt have to cover everything... and it shouldnt, but certian issues should be covered. The government should lay down a basis that all employers should obey. I cant say that I think employers should be held liable for me falling down the stairs, but I shouldnt be left out in the cold just because I work from home.
I need to do my laundry
Please send $3 to:
Jon Allen
p.o. box 308142
Facing a barrage of criticism, Slashdot user spam368 today withdrew a claim stating that he achieved first post.
Holy crap, they actually may have realized that this would effectively end telecommuting. Wow.
The Slashdot crowd enjoyed making fun of this when it was first posted here, but like it or not, there are some real concerns that need to be answered.
Telecommuting is expected to continue rising in popularity. Employers could find themselves obliged to offer telecommuting benefits in order to attract good people (if this is not already happening). If it becomes widespread enough, they will surely seek ways to reduce or minimize costs.
For employers not to be held liable for preventable home-office injuries would be nothing less than a cash cow for corporations. It is not hard to imagine Fortune 1000 companies offering generous telecommuting plans in order to encourage employees to work at home, and thereby excusing themselves from any responsibility for their safety. Then, if you wind up with an RSI due to poor working conditions at home, the company takes no blame despite having pushed you into that situation.
It is exactly this sort of Catch-22 for employees that only regulation can prevent. While this is not an issue today, it may well be a problem soon. It is entirely appropriate for OSHA to consider the liabilities associated with telecommuting.
The Mercury News did an excellent series on how Silicon Valley farms out assembly work to Asian immigrants and their families.
Surely you're not saying that just because the senators are republicans, that they have no care for individual welfare and only care about the companies. Oh wait a second, that's exactly what you're saying:
"I wonder where all the pressure came from. Citizens? Or the business lobby? Given the fact that the two politicians that were quoted were Republicans, it must have been mostly from the business side."
Well, as a freestanding individualist, I find your stereotypes as annoying as your ignorance. And I also do not believe ANYONE should expect the companies they work for to at any time care about in what conditions you live or work at home. If we open that door, we'll find that some companies actually WANT to pick out their employees furniture! And a couple other things too.
This OHSA paper from November 15th, 1999, seems illogical and also indicative of the growing unnecessary government influence in our lives. I'm glad we live in a time and place where it could be reversed quickly.
-Ben
Not only do I think it's my responsibility to keep that area safe, I don't want to have the company coming in and inspecting my apartment on a regular basis to ensure everything's kosher. So I leave things lying around sometimes - should I get penalized by my employer for how I keep my home? Will the safety of my kitchen, or lack thereof, be called into question because I work from home? And so on. And require me to pay for anything that needs to get fixed, replaced, adjusted, etc. since it's my home? Let's take it even farther. If I work from home, can the company dictate that I can only do it with "company standard" hardware & software, anf I have to buy the hardware out of my own pocket?
I was amazed at how one of my local news stations (ABC) ran this very same story right after I finished reading it on /.
/. ;)
/. can actually be more timely than traditional media. :)
Seeing as how the original article referenced an MSNBC article about the OSHA letter, I'm still not sure wether ABC picked the story up from MSNBC or
In any event its nice to know that some 'News for Nerds' actually gets reported in mainstream media also... and that
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
From what I understand, some company in Texas asked OSHA what their obligations were in this area, and OSHA resoponded. They did not, AFAIK go poking thier nose into this unasked. Someone asked them, they responded, and the whole thing got blown out of proportion.
It seems to me that there have been a lot of annoucements made recently that were quickly retracted after criticism. It seems to me we could save a lot of hassle if legislators/business ASKED the people what they want, and what they think, before they act. Maybe that is too much to ask from unelected officals.
J
Hey, how did this get bumped up to a 2?
"Have you got a home office? OSHA it!"
This doesn't really make sense - as comfortable as I may be at home, comfort doesn't keep the carpel tunnel away, and in fact my perception of comfort today (which might be sitting in an ez-chair with a notebook or something) could be very bad for me. It isn't unreasonable to ask a company who pays for a computer, a monitor, keyboard, etc.. to at least *help* pay for a chair, and maybe a desk - if you work primarily (or ONLY) from home, then it's cheaper than doing the same at the office. My employer doesn't do this, and I didn't ask them to - but it would have been nice. Also, rather than outfitting you with an entire home office, they could give you a small budget to help create your home office, since the quality of your home office will be reflected in your work. If you are uncomfortable or inconvenienced because you could only afford cheap office furniture, you probably won't work as much as if your home office is a place you like to be. I don't think I would want them completely furnishing my home office, because If/when I move to another job, I would have to give back (or pay for) all of the furniture they gave me.
Sure - Telecommuting is a priveledge, it's great, I love it and I'm sure that everyone else who has the priveledge loves it, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be some care taken to ensure that employees are safe from hazards that will keep us from working.
I've seen the argument that in moving from the home office to the kitchen for lunch, you may trip and fall and could sue the company - this is absurd, that's like saying that if you get in an accident driving from the office to Pizza Hut you could sue the company, you've left the realm of your job. If there is a hazard in your home, it's your fault - but if you're working from home, it's reasonable (if the employer is providing you with equipment) for them to provide you with healthy equipment. Simply publishing information and letting us make our own decisions isn't the best thing - Office furniture is expensive, I think that the chairs used in our offices list at over $600 - that's more than any single thing I own is worth, with the exceptions of my car and my computer. I could buy a couch for that, or a recliner, or a big screen TV - Most people wouldn't go to that expenditure on their own, and wouldn't be able to get the kind of deals on used office furniture that a company could (It's easy to buy 20 or 30 used chairs at a discount, but who wants to deal with one person? It wouldn't be unreasonable for companies to buy extra furniture for telecommuters and allow them the option of buying it for their home office, rather than paying retail).
Anyway, I could rant and rant ;p I just don't think it's completely unreasonable for OSHA to have policies on the home office of a Full-Time employee (contract workers are, of course, on their own). I fall somewhere inbetween, and I can't complain (nor do I).
Next thing you know, my employer will be calling my cubicle "home" and they'll take away my ergonomic chair and keyboard.
My company was the same one that took the full time $7/hr cleaning crew and turned it into a $7/hr part time cleaning crew so the company could could get out of paying for benefits.
Don't think it can't happen to you.
doh nevermind =P
The unregulated approach works for expensive skilled people like us. We can afford decent equipment and furnishings. And we tend not to work with things that are hard to make reasonably safe. Yeah, a computer with an open case can be a shock hazard, but that's our own problem.
But it doesn't work for the less expensively skilled people or those who work with things that are difficult to make safe. Ten hours a day of data entry on the kind of screen, keyboard, and mouse that you can afford on min. wage can cause you some rather serious problems. Without some rules, it's too cheap and easy to replace the wortkers. And I just bet it's both more convenient for the janitor, and way, way cheaper for the employer, if the janitor takes the elevator parts and cleaning fluids home and cleans the parts in his sink, rather than using the OSHA approved stuff, including toxic waste disposal services, at the job site.
Neither idea works. Non-regulation of work done at home is too easy to abuse, and applying current OSHA workplace regs to a home environment is, for the reasons so many have mentioned, intolerable. I don't have any other ideas ar this point, either.
try to relax...
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Well, I'll give up on the ergonomic mouse and ergonomic on/off switch...
More seriously:
As someone who does a lot of freelance writing, I think it's a bit sad that regulations are still trailing behind on the subject of ergonomics for the telecommuter and/or freelancer. I don't think it should necessarely be up to the companies to pay for all the ergonomic stuff people may or may not need, but I think there's a need for Government funding in helping telecommuters and freelancers get support in acquiring a safe work environment at home.
Maybe it's too much to ask for damages with carpal syndrome, severe caffeine addiction, monitor radiation tan and severe loss of hair, but hey. I understand this legislation was shot down, but I hope a more sensible one pops up.
OSHA almost shut down the growing telecommuting trend. I plan to take advantage of that in the near future and I do not want OSHA denying me that opportunity.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
The alternative is to open your home to warantless OSHA inspections. Are you ready for that? Since you dislike employers so much, are you willing to let the employers dictate how your house must be laid out and equipped before you can work for them? Is your house adequately equipped with fire exits? Do you have MSDS sheets for that bottle of who-knows-what under the kitchen sink?
There is no provision in the OSH Act for half-way regulation of the home. Its either a workplace or its not.
Just to make it more interesting, your facts are entirely wrong. Under essentially all of the health plans I've dealt with (far too many) the relevant exclusion is drafted to be seamless with workers compensation. That is, it is either "injury in the course and scope of employment" or covered under a normal health plan. There is essentially nothing that falls through the cracks as being neither (the reasons for this would take more time than I've got. Ask me if you want to know.)
My guess is that you might have gotten disinformation from someone who has a reason to oppose people working from their homes. Why, I don't know. Some people simply find that kind of individual freedom disturbing. Others are union organizers or whatever.
No convenience like this comes totally free, but I'll take it over the hazards of commuting (also not OSHA-covered!) any day.
--Toby White
Need to use the bathroom? Gotta pass the shattered glass and pine tar pathway!
Phone's ringing? Watch out for the medicine balls and hot coals!
Seriously, I really don't want my employer telling me to clean my room, my girlfriend does that enough.
"supply decent light bulbs for quality lighting"? You want my employer to choose and buy my light bulbs? Because make no mistake, if my employer can be held libel for damages caused by crummy lights, then they'll be deciding what kind of lights I can have. I sort of enjoy freedom. I don't want a company lawyer poking into my house saying "We'll choose your furniture and your lights, and we'll eliminate anything dangerous in your house that isn't needed for work. Ditch the skateboard, you might trip on it. Shoot the dog, he might bite you. Abandon the wife and kids, you might catch their cold. You will be assimilated."
No, no no no no!
Companies cannot go back to the 19th century. The first one that tried it would be sued into oblivion.
Work the puzzle. If company X decided to make 1000 little sweatshops, where would they find 1000 employees to staff 'em?
The economy is too damn good for anyone to be willing to work in an uncomfortable (read ergonomic) environment.
Now, if the Y2K bug had taken out Wall Street, you'd have a case...
Meow
Yes, that's really my e-mail. Don't change a thing.
But should your employer be required to provide you with certain items (work chair, desk, computer)? If not, then I can imagine that having a really good home office setup might make you a more desirable job candidate. ("Jim and John both look like really good engineers, but John's less likely to have RSI trouble due to his ergonomic keyboard... Jim's Internet connection sucks and his machines are old and slow, whereas John has a really up-to-date setup, very professional... Let's hire John.") I can see how, over time, this might lead to equipment costs being borne by employees rather than employers. Telecommuters would, in that way, start to look more like external contractors than real employees.
And here's one more issue: If you are responsible for the condition of your home work environment, should OSHA have authority over you? I would argue that they shouldn't, since this is your home, not a corporate environment that your employer requires you to work in, over which you have no control. (Then again, if your job requires you to telecommute, is your employer essentially forcing you to work in an unregulated and therefore potentially unsafe environment? I sense a slippery slope here...)
Dude, I see in my mind's eye, your name becoming a grunge rock band in the future
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I disagree. The damages were sought because of the total lack of free Vaseline which was deemed necessary by OSHA to prevent -
er
are kids under 18 reading this site?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Since you telecommute from home your home is an extension of the office. The Firm needs a way to monitor your activity, just like the home office, so please install cameras in your living room, bathroom, and bedroom so The Firm can monitor your productivity and can be sure it complies with OSHA. The Firm is considering sending a direct video feed of your home office to OSHA to guarantee compliance. Privacy abuse, who us? The Firm, the government (OSHA is good, we really only care about you and are doing this in your best interest, whether you like it or not), oh just trust us, we know what's in your best interest. Think about what you wish for.
When you get up to make lunch in your kitchen, but either fall in the process or cut yourself while making it, would that be covered? If I was at work, I'd be getting up to go to lunch too, wouldn't I? Or something catches on fire from your cigarette? Is that covered even if you can't smoke at the office?
We could go through countless situations where it just doesn't make sense to apply these rules. I understand you don't think every rule should apply at home, but where do you stop? We have a country full of lawyers that could find reasons why each situation should be covered if this rule is kept in place.
Working at home is a privilege and I don't know any place where its a requirement. As such, these safety rules shouldn't apply.
BTW, does anyone know if there's anything on the books about safety if operating your private vehicle to run some errands for work? Its very similar to what we're talking about here.
Myself, I have a good amount of respect for OSHA. It probably helps that one of my friends almost died because her former employer was in flagrant violation of OSHA rules. And all of the real examples I've seen, (as opposed to wild exageration and supposition) have pointed towards a real need for some light to be shed on the issue of employers avoiding responsibility in work from home plans.
Here's to OSHA continuing its job of protecting worker saftey and health from corner cutting employers.
...will work for Chick tracts...
Ooops, forgot to turn off HTML formatting.
-too fucked to drink.
Anyone else think they might have been browsing /.? Kinda like when everyone (sadly, even me) was bashing the proposed casting for Enders Game, Orson Scott Card made himself a little account and posted some replies to us. See, we do discuss "stuff that matters"...
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Yeah, but only when his employer agreed to pay for his liposuction.
- Rei
He may be bullet-proof, have the ability to fly, be a great baseball player, and/or Santa Claus.
Don't think for one second that this is over. When the Supreme Court issues a ruling on this, or Congress starts passing bills protecting privacy including home inspecions by employers, then I'll start feeling better about it. OSHA has made a habit of micro-regulating all unsafe behavior, and since everything from eating too much candy to using a soldering iron while wearing a T-shirt is unsafe, my take is: "Give them time." Left unchecked, they will attempt to regulate it.
Good luck to all of us telecommuters!
Notice: Your mouse has been moved. Windows will now restart so this change can take effect.
the, "Employees must wash hands before returning to work" sign I put in my bathroom.
I was really disappointed to hear this. ONE DAY after it is first proposed?
The change in question was regarding telecommuting. Do you really want OSHA inspectors in your home? Or regular visits from the equivilant from your employer? How else could an employer make sure your home meets OSHA requirements?
The answer is simple, the employer CAN'T and wont. Telecommuters would have ended up back in the cube farm again where their employer could micro manage their work environment to limit liability.
As someone pointed out (late enough that it'll probably get lost in the shuffle, as will this comment), this was an advisory (not even a proposed regulation) sent to a specific employer when they asked about their situation. Their situation was not telecommuting. It was handling of explosive material, specifically fireworks.
Now, maybe you think employers should be responsible for their employees' safety if they get their workers to assemble fireworks at home in their spare time, and maybe you don't. But the fact is that the haymakers here weren't "the administration," they were the administration's opponents, who want to take every opportunity possible to pump up the theory "Democrats = regulation, regulation = bad." The RNC went so far as to issue a press release that all but said Gore and Bradley were personally responsible for this stupid oppression of all home workers. Don't believe it--and don't buy into the "we're the anti-government party" rhetoric when either party spouts it. Not all regulations are bad, and conversely, bad regulation cuts across party lines handily (just like overspending and tax raises do).
And, don't paint OSHA as the bad guys. They're severely understaffed and can't enforce most of what they're charged with anyway--and if you look at most of what they do (instead of digging for spectacular stupids, which any set of regulations will have a few of), those regulations came about after accidents that they're trying to prevent. (The anti-regulation forces always somehow forget that the majority of regulation came about because of public outcry, not because bureaucrats wanted to make their own jobs more difficult.)
Lets take some examples;
- Company X supplies a company car. The brakes fail, but it's outside the office - do you think they get away with it?
- Company Y asks an employee to deliver a package. It explodes, but it's outside the office - again, who do you think gets their arses sued?
Individuals are already well protected, regardless if they're an employee or not, regardless if they're in the office or not. Being an employee does not remove individual protection...So yes, this will be revisited -- with ample media attention no doubt. No, its not a disaster -- any more than the idea that employers may have some responsibilities for home office conditions is a disaster. It is the start of a broad discussion of a previously unexplored issue that is very relevant to those of us that telecom mute.
I couldn't find the contorversial letter in a quick scan of the Labor Department and OSHA sites. I suppose its been removed. Does anyone have a URL for it? I would have expected to find it here but its a gonner.
At the job I used to have I asked about tele-commuting. The head IT guy (who was married to an HR manager) said that one of the reasons they didn't allow it was this OSHA thing.
That was 2 years ago.
So the question is, did you HEAR about it yesterday, or did it HAPPEN yesterday.
---
Linux MAPI Server!
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Newspeak-to-English Translation: "Oops; we've been spotted. Better lie low until the heat's off."
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The other problem is that sweatshop-like expectations already exist in tech fields. Remember the "high-tech sweatshop" article from a few months back? I see plenty of possibilities for abuse of at-home workers here.
At a company that shall remain nameless that I used to work for, a "capacity planning" study was going on. Basically, they wanted the "average" time it took someone to perform each and every possible job function. And given the way management worked at that company, if it normally took me 4 minutes to do Task A, and a Task A-like item that was a bit abnormal came across my desk and took me 15 minutes to handle properly, I'd be in trouble.
In fact, since the volume of work we handled varied so frequently, the department was continually barraged with "What do you people DO all day?" by other departments as well as by our own managers. Um, we try to keep on top of all the ridiculous little projects you keep assigning us, that don't do much beyond eat time anyhow. They also cut our department from six people to four during the year I was there, and rumor has it my position wasn't replaced either (this from a former co-worker that claimed the place went to hell in a handbasket when I left
That experience just left a bad taste in my mouth.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I also noticed something weird yesterday where a one-point positive moderation of one of my posts increased my karma by three points.
Must be Y2Karma problems.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It would be unfortunate if the government inspected your own home and made you install 10 fire exstinguishers, 1,000 feet of stainless steel railing, 4 handicap accessible bathrooms and whatever local municpal code is all the rage.
Can't wait for the health inspector to check out my fridge. "2 month old Peanut butter? $500 fine!"
Let's keep the banal wanna-be socialism and socialists to a minimum eh?
Libertarianism would probably demand to dissolve OSHA completely, my post suggests we keep things the way they are which is the definition of conservative. You are still a socialist though.
'We all got an opinion' all right, but some of us are actually right!
You're right. Before OSHA was established in 1971, conditions were exactly like they were in the 1800's.
-Jordan Henderson
With your cynicism toward politicians and your apparent belief that Agencies like OSHA protect us from horrific backward conditions, perhaps you'd prefer that Government be taken away from those rascally politicians and give it over to the enlightened beaurocrats you seem to trust.
After all, if a Government by politicians can't be trusted, how can we trust them to run our cherished Regulatory Agencies?
-Jordan Henderson
If you work at work, they have a responsibility to provide a suitable environs for you to work in. Perhaps there is a tradeoff if you wish to work at home?
Or, let's look at it this way. What if OSHA said that a business had to provide a reasonable working environment somewhere. The company doesn't want to pay for the desk, chair, and whatever widgets they have for your use at the company as well as the ones you have at home. That is not cost efficient. But you could have a reasonable chair (perhaps the same ones the company buys) and similar ergonomic benifits at home provided you did not have them at work. You are responsible for transporting the company's goods from one place to another. They are, in effect, checked out.
If you work more at work, you may just for get the whole thing, while if your office at work is more or less where you store things, and you do the bulk of your work at home, you go buy a cheap chair somewhere so when you have to do something at work, you have somewhere to sit.
/dev/psychic: No medium found
keep the socialism to a minimum? Uh, only if you agree to keep your libertarianism to a minimim. Hey, we've all got an opinion, and they're all political. There is no neutral ground.
That's not my view. Basically OSHA does more good than bad for the average worker, therefore I support it. I'm not applying a strict ideology.
Yes, I am definatly stereotyping. Frankly after giving poiticians a chance (republican or democrat) for a number of years, I'm sick of the lies, the half-truths, etc. Normally I don't see any reason to give them the benefit of the doubt when I've been lied to so many times.
Also note I'm calling for something reasonable, don't try to pull me to one end of the "all or nothing" on this issue. I think they should pay for an ergonomic setup, and if you are doing, say, home assembly, and their tools cause you to get injured, they should be liable if the tools are deemed unsafe. Things like that. I'm not calling for this "liable if anything in your house causes you to get hurt" that you seem to suggest.
ok, mix up on my part. I'd still put forth the same comments. The fact that there was enough pressure on them to withdraw a semi-formal letter still worries me a lot.
Homer J. Simpson today withdrew his suit against Springfield Nuclear Power Plant alleging that the company's decision to allow him to work from home led to a bizarre accident causing the irradiation of his rear end.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
However, should your company be required to comply with the regs addressing ergodynamics. I'm not so certain that it is not unreasonable to require an employer to supply a worker with a good chair . While an employer should not have to renovate an employee's home they should likewise not be able to escape the duty to provide a relatively safe working environment.
My bet is that you are going to see a hybrid set of regs promulgated shortly addressing telecommuters/at home employees. The issue will be heavily lobbied however, as I am certain that most corps have little or no interest in even providing chairs and wrist rests if they aren't compelled to do so. That bodes poorly for the at home workers as their lobbying might is, well, underwhelming.
I do, however, guarantee that this is not the last we have heard about OSHA compliance in the home. It's always fun to watch government at work.
rootrot
...is that the any part of the government can unfuck a poor decision in this short of a time period. And for all those who insist that there should be some kind of regulations for the home: Piss off. Unless you're forced to work at home, you have absolutley no ground to stand on. And even then, you're probably paid well enough to by your own chair. PLaNetJoe and all you monkeys need some exercise.
-too fucked to drink.
Implications:
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The IRS doesn't like it, and won't let you. There are rulings about this all the time.
Basically: if you treat them as if they are an employee, then they ARE an employee.
Some of the indications they look for:
* The 'contractors' actually only work for one company.
* They don't have limited term contracts, or they are constantly, automatically renewed.
* They're subject to the same employee-handbook type rules and restrictions as employees.
* No more flexibility in working hours than an employee
> ONE DAY after it is first proposed?
/. to propose regulations. The actual date of the "federal interpetation letter" from OSHA was Nov 15.
Believe it or not, OSHA doesn't use
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
This is a problem no matter how you look at it.
... until they get it. A small few might consider this a great opportunity to squeeze some new office furniture out of the company.
With the numbers of home workers now stretching into the millions, there is an urgent need to ensure that these workers are protected from injury. The problem is whose responsibility this is going to be.
With the publication of this new "interpretive letter", OSHA put thousands of companies on notice that they were now going to be responsible for workplace ergonomics/safety issues in home offices over which they have little direct control.
At the same time, millions of telecommuters, salesmen, freelancers, consultants, and others found themselves faced with the possibility that the company they now work with at arm's length will suddenly require an inspection of their home office.
Neither the companies nor the telecommuters, by and large, wanted any part of this. Companies would have been forced to either buy new equipment and expand human resources monitoring, or rescind moves toward telecommuting; workers would have been forced to let the company inspect their home, or return to the office. Very few workers consider RSI a serious problem
In a word, this regulation could have killed the telecommuting golden goose.
The good that has been done is to bring this issue to the forefront. The OSHA people are asking for input on how to implement basic regulatory requirements for the home office. This can have a happy ending; for instance, in a related situation, the IRS at first announced highly restrictive new guidelines for tax deductibility of home offices, then Congress rewrote the law so that the status quo would continue.
The outcome here is possibly/likely going to result in individual responsibility for these safety/ergonomic issues, while signing off on a legal form that absolves the employer of responsibility. Hopefully, in the process, there will also be an education campaign to ensure that these spun-off workers have some sense of how the decisions they're making will affect their future health.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
OSHA won't recommend rules for telecommuters' home offices. This is good!
Unfortunately, the cat's already out of the bag. "What a neat idea", you can almost hear people thinking. "I can now get my employer to buy me a new ergonomic chair for the home office and a keyboard tray and an ergo keyboard and..." And some of these many people work for a company that laughs at the request. And one of those people will develop some form of RSI while telecommuting from home in their non-ergonomic environment.
And that bastard's gonna sue.
Soon, his company will be paying out a huge settlement, some of which will be absorbed probably by insurance, being medically related. And the insurance companies will notice. And they'll declare higher rates for companies that allow telecommuting.
I don't think it will completely kill telecommuting, but once the problem enters the realms of the beancounters, nothing is safe...
I was really disappointed to hear this. ONE DAY after it is first proposed? Wether or not you agree with some of the specifics (the staircase example seems a bit much), something HAS to be done when 20 Million people work this way, and yes, it needs to be regulated. If we didn't have an organization like OSHA we'd be back to the 1800's where it wasn't uncommon for people to die in factories on a regular basis.
I wonder where all the pressure came from. Citizens? Or the business lobby? Given the fact that the two politicians that were quoted were Republicans, it must have been mostly from the business side. If you doubt corporate power, getting this blown away in one day should make you think otherwise.
Also:
Republican leaders had already pledged to scrutinize OSHA after Congress returns from its holiday break because of regulations the agency
proposed in November that would require employers to minimize everyday physical - or "ergonomic" - stresses of certain jobs.
What the hell is wrong with this? This is referring to proposed regulations at the company's site, not even at home. Corporations can't even tolerate these minimal expenses (when they might actually save money due to less employee time lost)? When corporate profits are at or near all time highs, why do we allow them to get away with this? Does anyone else find this to be really unfortunate?
Since I sent them a handwritten letter I'll try to recreate some of my points here:
1) Telecommuting is a giant ergonomic plus in and of itself. The workers will automatically adjust their home environment to their liking for when they are working (and even when they're not).
2) This being true, the benefit gained by forcing employers to take on the same obligations towards telecommuting workers as they have for onsite employees, will be strongly offset by a cutback in telecommuting programs. This will have a small but negative impact on the environment, as former telecommuters go back to their full morning/nite automobile commute schedule.
3) Who is to say the telecommuter won't do something to the furniture (say, SELL it)? This opens the door for the necessity of increased monitoring and accounting of their behavior at home, which is already certain to rise to alarming levels just to keep track of their work habits. A company trying to manage a telecommuter's ergonomic safety in the home, looks to be like trying to gently set down a can of charcoal lighter fluid on burning coals. Not a good idea. (And the people who try it won't get to keep their souls. heh.)
4) For the sake of ergonomic improvements and the environment, I would suggest two revisions:
A) Publish information about ergonomic issues at home, for telecommuters. Give employers a small financial incentive to disseminate this information. Let the telecommuters make their own well informed ergonomic decisions at home.
B) Provide more incentives to companies to push more of their tasks that have telecommuting potential, into telecommuting programs. Companies that do this should be assessed tax credits that will be ledgered against environmental funds (in other words take the tax credit loss out on the eco budget because it is, after all, cutting down on pollution from automobile commutes).
I wrote this last night and threw it in the mailbox this morning. And lo and behold the situation is already resolved. Grrrrrrrrrr. Oh well!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Its not a coincidence that this retraction comes just hours after a large number of work at home Slashdot readers started filing for damages due to Linux "research" involving the latest Playboy issue.
I don't think anyone really can know the lasting trauma of a poorly placed papercut till it happens to a sensitive area.
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