MRM EXCLUSIVE: New OSHA Rules Will Challenge Restaurant Owners

3 Min Read By Joseph P. Paranac, Jr

Thanks to changes in Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) rules, restaurants are likely to face stepped-up safety and health inspections, while violations will subject them to historically hefty fines.

More Rapid Response InvestigationsRules adopted in 2015 – and are now being heavily felt in the restaurant and other industries – require employers to notify OSHA, in some cases within hours, of any work-related accidents that result in a fatality, inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye. Previous guidelines required such reporting only for fatalities or inpatient hospitalizations of three or more employees. 

The new guidelines appear to have spurred OSHA to issue more Rapid Response Investigations or RRIs that give businesses about a week to investigate the cause of the accident, determine how to prevent similar ones from recurring, and report the findings to OSHA. 

If the employer’s response does not pass muster, OSHA may launch its own, wider…