Interacting with OSHA - Employers' Rights and Responsibilities

An OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officer (CSHO) appears at your door to conduct an inspection, either programmed or unprogrammed. What can and should you do?  This paper summarizes CSHO inspections, the types of citations that can be issued, and the available responses to those citations as well as the procedures following a contest of the citation.  This paper also summarizes the rights and responsibilities of employers during CSHO inspections and after the issuance of citations, as well as available cooperative programs/agreements between employers and OSHA.  The paper focuses on interaction with OSHA itself rather than State OSH plans but identifies the States that have their own approved OSH plans.