Help Me With Sign Michigan Banking Emergency Contact Form

Help me with industry sign banking michigan emergency contact form

good morning everybody thanks for joining us for an another osha webinar in our osha 2020 webinar series uh in our little sleepy corner of the universe we typically have 12 topics one a month no big emergencies no big breaking ocean news but this year it seems like there's been some extraordinary development not just obviously in the osha universe but in all corners of the world because of the coronavirus covet 19 pandemic but it really is a worker safety or workplace safety uh crisis and so there have been so many developments this year that have caused us to add and ahead and add to our uh osha webinar series and we're delighted to to be able to do that and to have so many of you join us even for these we'll call them emergency sessions where there's been some breaking development and we've got one of those in michigan where michigan osha has joined with a few other states to promulgate coveted 19 specific regulations or mandatory enforceable requirements where we have not seen that at a at a national level so we thought we would get together today with uh with as many of you who are affected by the michigan osha rule and talk to you a little bit about how we got here what's in the rule what does it mean and what are some tips and strategies for complying with the new rule uh real quickly just to introduce ourselves i'm eric kahn i am one of the founding partners and of con maciel carey and i chair the firm's national osha workplace safety practice group uh we really are a national practice with five offices spread around the country in the west coast the midwest and uh in the east coast and i'm a proud member of the michigan bar because michigan osha does not like carpet baggers that are not admitted to practice in michigan so with uh with all the work that we do with michigan employers i became a member of the michigan bar a couple years ago um so i can practice uh in miosha cases all the time i've practiced in this space now for 20 years exclusively in workplace safety and health started my career practicing alongside the first general counsel of the ash review commission and after a few years at a large national firm started my own osha practice and ultimately my own firm uh six years ago con maciel cary where we focus on workplace safety and health and labor and employment law issues our osha practice really runs the full gamut we work with employers and inspections investigations catastrophes and enforcement actions involving principally osha the state ash plans the chemical safety board msha and other you know the tla three-letter acronym agencies that get involved in worker safety uh issues um and uh and in addition to sort of that reactive practice we have a very robust counseling advice and counsel practice for compliance assistance for for osha issues developing compliant programs training auditing and the full gamut of safety and health related legal services uh you know i thought for those 19 of those 20 years that i was an extremely specialized attorney osha is a very specialized area of the law but this year in particular i've become even more specialized really become a covid19 osha lawyer and i'm proud to chair uh con maciel cary co-chair con maciel carrie's coveted 19 task force where we've developed a ton of resources answered a million questions helped employers develop exposure control plans conduct risk assessments and really help deal with this pandemic in the workplace i'm pleased to be joined today by two of our my midwest colleagues and i'll let them introduce themselves thanks eric this is aaron gelb like eric i came from a large firm where i ran the osha practice a national national actually international firm uh joined con maciel carrie three years ago just just a little under three years ago and lead the midwest osha practice formerly out of uh the chicago loop currently out of the north side of chicago in my home home office like i think many folks that are listening um i i like eric also devote most of my practice to managing inspections and contesting citations as well as advising clients through proactive steps revisions of safety programs privilege safety audits accident and incident investigations i also devote part of my practice to employment litigation i've tried a number of cases to jury in federal court and arbitrations uh and and the like so look forward to talking to you all about the latest development in michigan and i'll turn it over to my colleague ashley thanks good morning everyone um i'm ashley mitchell and i'm also sitting in chicago i do work in the chicago office but i am on the south side at my home office right now um i started my practice in labor and employment and now i am also working in workplace safety and health and the plan is to split my practice about 50 50 between labor and employment and the osha side but given all the recent developments in covid i've been spending just a bit more time on the osha side and i look forward to speaking with you all later today during the presentation excellent so here's what we have planned to cover today uh we want to get a little bit into how did we get here right i think everybody on the on the webinar knows that michigan osha adopted emergency rules in conjunction with the governor emergency rules we'll talk a little bit about how we got here maybe why we are at the place now that michigan has these emergency rules and then we're going to talk a little bit about the rule itself what does it require and then even though it's only been out for about a week the agency has issued some frequently asked questions and we have identified a pretty good line of communication with michigan osha and have been asking questions that have mainly been coming in from you all from our clients and from folks who want to understand a little bit more about what this rule actually requires how it applies in their workplaces so we'll share a little bit about what we've learned that's not on michiganoshi's website and not anywhere that we've seen yet but that we've gotten some answers uh for you so let's jump right in to uh talk a little bit about the fed osha approach to the response to covet 19 and how that has inspired and motivated uh where we are with michigan osha today uh the fedocia versus state ash plan approach to covet 19 a tale of two systems i think probably all remember back to when we first really started to grapple with the covet 19 pandemic here in the u.s the fed osha response was i think a very smart one a reasoned one a necessary one but it was one that was focused principally on compliance assistance but that makes sense right this was a brand new hazard that no one understood that we still to this day don't understand everything about our understanding about modes of transmission effective infection control strategies was constantly changing and so osha spent a good part of the first couple of months of this pandemic educating employers about how they could protect workers in the workplace from transmission of the virus they put out an extraordinary amount of guidance documents general guidance guidance specific to at this point probably a couple dozen specific industries and responded to an extraordinary number of employee complaints employee concerns um and referrals and reports of of clusters and outbreaks and hospitalizations and deaths involving covet 19 principally again through an education lens so as the agency you can see at the bottom this is state and federal osha combined through in the first week of october had received more than 40 000 employee complaints about you know how my employer is responding to this or not responding to it not allowing us to use ppe not providing sppe not implementing cdc guidance and so forth and almost all of those complaints were met with a response from osha that was not enforcement but instead was a you know a letter to the employer uh you know sharing with the employer that the complaint has been received and sharing with the employer guidance about how to deal with coven 19 in the workplace and in some instances asking the employer to respond to osha to explain how they are addressing this new hazard in the workplace what you know what infection control strategies they're implementing but not really engaging in very many inspections at all where we did see a few inspections early on were things that i'm sure that you were seeing on the news or reading about in the newspaper huge outbreaks at you know big meat packing facilities significant incidents at healthcare systems but really it was the very rare exception that there would be an enforcement inspection versus some form of compliance assistance in education in addition to all that despite calls and clamoring for federal osha to adopt a pardon me a coven 19 emergency temporary standard um fedocia declined stated publicly they didn't think they needed one and despite this response you know a lot of guidance documents a lot of education uh osha was getting beaten up uh beaten up in the press beaten up by uh a big part of its constituency on the worker side uh the new york times and the washington post were writing about osha and this was for me a giant ocean nerd seeing you know osha talked about on you know the nightly news you know two or three times a week and covered in uh in big national media um it was it was interesting to watch uh and the general consensus was hey osha you're sitting on the sidelines uh you're not taking enough action where is this emergency temporary standard that we need where is the enforcement uh that would require employers to to take action or can you know scare them into taking action uh that there was a perception they weren't taking uh and despite that you know even with a lawsuit the afl cio sued osha to try and compel them to issue an emergency temporary standard so there would be specific enforceable regulatory requirements around managing the covet 19 hazard in the workplace despite all that osha stood firm dug in its heels and said we don't need a covet 19 specific standard we have the general duty clause we have the respiratory protection standard we have the ppe standard we have sanitation standards we don't need a specific standard an emergency standard focus just on this unique novel virus hazard because we can address that hazard with the tools that we have at our disposal the state ash plans out there at least the state osh plans in what would be considered blue states um saw this you know like the afl-cio did like worker advocates did like the post and the times and rachel maddow and all these folks did as you know osha asleep at the switch falling down on the job not filling in to address this important hazard and so the states started to act individually and we've seen that response in two different ways either with enforceable executive orders which are tantamount to a regulation or in specific emergency temporary standards focused on covet 19 in virginia we're not going to talk about the virginia rule but i share this just so you can see sort of the mood of the country where these state planned states with democratic governors that control the the enforcement agencies in the state feeling like they needed to step in and fill this gap where fedosha was not acting and this is uh virginia's democratic governor ralph northam saying workers shouldn't have to sacrifice their health and safety to earn a living especially during a global pandemic in the face of federal inaction virginia has stepped up to protect workers from covet 19 creating the nation's first enforceable workplace safety requirements and that would not be the last we're going to talk about a couple other states that have followed suit but just this morning i mean this is how much these sort of dominoes are starting to fall i got news that new jersey's democratic governor pat murphy even though new jersey is a federal osha state has issued executive orders specific to addressing covet 19 in the workplace and he gives a quote you know announcing along with the press release that comes with his executive order that sounds an awful lot like governor northam's the federal government has failed to provide all workers the proper standards and protections they deserve said governor murphy in a statement today's executive order closes the gap to help ensure the health and safety of our workforce during this unprecedented time what governor murphy did in his executive order was very much like what we've seen in a lot of states around the country even before we started to see these emergency temporary standards like virginia did we were seeing executive orders and enforcement of those executive orders by either the state's ash agency or by the health department or by some other licensing agency in the states around the country and that included in michigan michigan was perhaps the most aggressive state in the country at enforcing executive orders before now adopting an emergency rule but we've seen this in california new mexico minnesota and washington and really all over the country executive orders being enforced like they are a workplace safety regulation virginia stepped forward and was the first to adopt a formal regulation covet 19 regulation that's been in effect now since the end of july and we're just now starting to see the implementation and enforcement of that by the agency we know that oregon and california have emergency rules that are working their way through an emergency rule-making process a formal process in those states oregon's rule is due to be finalized in about a week i think it's going to be the first week of november california the standards board there is due to vote on they say to vote on a rule in mid-november but nobody has seen the proposed rule yet so they may miss that deadline but then michigan last week became the second state to formally adopt an emergency rule they did it in a in an interesting way we'll talk about in a second uh but they their emergency rule is similar to what we've seen in virginia and similar to what we um that we know is coming in oregon what we expect is coming in california and what a lot of these executive orders look like at a very high level it's assess the risk where are there high levels of risk of transmission implement infection control plans to deal with that risk depending on your risk level and then make notifications uh training education and notifications to workers and to the agencies about the risks and about your infection control strategies and about eight outbreaks that occur so in michigan in particular how did we get here i mentioned that michigan started out with executive orders that were being enforced in a pretty aggressive way we go all the way back to may governor whitmer utilizing her authority as the governor under the emergency powers of the governor of governor act of 1945 uh issued a series of executive orders you know affecting a range of uh the constituency in michigan not just the workplace but a lot of a lot of this guidance was specific to the workplace um but also to the general public there's obviously some high profile and controversial mask mandates and and requiring service industries to enforce mass mandates on customers and third parties requirements to to develop documented written emergency plans requirements to do screening uh temperature and symptom screening before starting work and to document all those tasks all of that was part of the executive orders even before we were dealing with a michigan osha standard and interestingly she endeavored to extend those emergency orders that have a shelf life beyond the original deadlines for those orders and the michigan legislature stepped in and said you don't have legal authority to do this without consultation with the michigan legislature you cannot on your own governor extend these executive orders and they brought suit in state court in michigan moved all the way up to the michigan supreme court and on october 12th the michigan supreme court struck down the emer governor whitmer's executive orders really her effort to extend the executive orders and did so effective immediately as of the 12th those executive orders were dead and then magically um a few days later there was a a new standard but what we ere seeing even before that standard this is under the old framework with the executive orders was that serious enforcement by michigan osha and they were doing this in a number of different industries but one that was really uh pretty high profile um and and very aggressive was michigan's um enforcement of the executive orders in the retail industry and we saw this in the form of a you know formal uh uh estate emphasis program in michigan focused on retail and the idea launched in in august and michigan osha um set out some criteria for how they were going to select dozens and dozens and dozens of retail employers broken down you can see at the bottom of the slide it's retailers and service industry so restaurants and bars gas stations and c stores grocery stores and other retail and that the agency was going to get into those workplaces to evaluate whether employers were following the executive orders and following cdc and osha's covet 19 guidance and you know the goal the purpose was to increase miosha's presence in retail establishments to ensure that workers are protected from sars kovi ii because employees who come in contact with large numbers of people as a result of their employment and large numbers of people here would be the public interactions with the general public are at elevated risk of infection so there was michigan osha out there enforcing um governor whitmer's executive orders the way they were doing it all right this is how federal osha said we're going to do it they were using the general duty clause but they were using it in a way that i don't think is entirely appropriate they were basically saying if you are not following the executive orders which on their own do not have an enforcement mechanism so michigan osha is enforcing them as though they are a specific regulation so the general duty clause it requires you to show that there is a serious recognized hazard that's not been abated by feasible means and michigan osha came out and said well you know forget about all those things we're required to prove we're just going to cite you if you are not following the executive order as though it is the law and if you didn't you know document your pre-work health screening like governor whitmer said you're required to do that's a general duty clause violation even though not documenting a pre-work health screening in no way causes or fails to abate a hazard if you've actually done the screening and not documenting an infection control plan if you actually implement engineering and administrative and safe work practice controls and ppe um to actually address and mitigate the hazard not documenting an infection control plan is not a general duty clause violation and if you implement a an infection control plan and it includes 90 percent of what's in the governor's executive orders but not the other 10 percent does that really have a material impact on safety and health in that workplace that's a showing that michigan osha would typically be required to make under the general duty clause but here they were saying look you weren't following you know executive order 2103 a sub i and sub triple i therefore it's a general duty clause violation so those violations are out there now here's a couple of examples you can see the things they were cited for one in particular was allowing workers to to work without face coverings and i can't remember if there's one on this slide but we know there's examples where they were enforcing the failure to enforce the mass mandate on the public which are individuals essentially beyond the control of the employer but you can see aggressive enforcement here even before there was a specific standard for them to cite although several of these i'm sure are being challenged i know some are because we're involved in them and we'll see how those play out but now we're in a different environment because you know remembering back uh on october 12th the michigan supreme court strikes down governor whitmer's executive orders and three days later or two days later governor whitmer in conjunction with michigan osha issued covet 19 emergency rules that were effective immediately so there was essentially no gap in time when michigan employers were not under some some threat of enforcement for not implementing infection control strategies and in particular the the specific infection control strategies selected by uh by the governor michigan osha has a formal rule making process they also have an emergency rule-making process and they also have this third level of emergency rule making process where you can if the executive if the governor and michigan osha deem the uh there to be imminent threat of of death or serious harm they can entirely bypass all of the public aspects of rulemaking you know typically in a formal rule making or even in an emergency rule making that's not you know imminent uh threat there is involvement of the public there is an opportunity for stakeholders like you know worker advocacy groups and employers and trade groups to comment and help shape and make rules more effective michigan osha and governor whitmer opted to bypass those stakeholder input elements of rulemaking in this instance and they announced that you know for the preservation of the public health safety and welfare michigan osha finds a clear and convincing need exists for promulgation of emergency rules as provided in the state's administrative procedure act and and other codes without following notice and participation procedures typically required by other elements of the administrative procedure act so without ever seeing a proposed rule without any opportunity to comment and to help advise the government about effective elements of a cova 19 rule this rule was adopted on two days notice or basically on on two days exercise and we have now an emergency a set of emergency temporary rules uh enforceable by michigan osha in a much simpler fashion it will be much easier for michigan osha to establish violations than what we were dealing with before right i mean i talked about how they were citing employers as though the executive orders were a specific standard but i think they're they're very vulnerable to challenge there and i'm confident in the cases that we are defending that those are not legitimate citations but now we have a rule where they don't have to prove things like would it make a material difference to implement this one additional measure because it is a specific enforceable requirement so for example the requirement to have a written exposure control plan if you didn't have one before they still have to show that not having one creates a hazard or not having one fails failed to abate the hazard in a material way and i don't think they could make that showing but if there is a specific rule that says thou shalt have a written exposure control plan and you don't have one well they don't have to prove all those other elements like they do in a general duty clause violation so their job will be a lot more easier a lot easier and i think we'll see a lot more aggressive enforcement because they have the tools now to do that so i'm going to hand it over to aaron to talk a little bit about what specifically is in these emergency rules thank you eric and um yeah just to emphasize that that that point i think from my perspective is really the key here is that we've got the potential for lots of paperwork violations kind of the ticky-tack low-hanging fruit that we we talk about in lots of inspections where even if there's no material impact or effect on safety on infection control in your workplace failing to tick certain boxes um have certain requirements could can result in in a very easy and difficult to defend citation either you have it or you don't so the rule and i should say i i initially referred to it as a rule because i think of it as a temporary standard but it's really 11 different rules that cobbled together as part of the emergency rules regarding covet 19. and and i'll talk a little bit there are some industry specific rules under rule nine but we've broken it down in essence two to five steps um kind of pulling together or combining several rules because they're all all related but rule three requires employers to conduct a workplace hazard assessment which i'll talk about in a second i'm confident that that many of our listeners have already done that this is something that's been required to for folks in virginia it's going to be part of the oregon temporary standard certainly i think if fed osha ever adopts an emergency temporary standard you'll see that requirement as well and it's already something that's in the guidance that osha issued way back in march rule 4 requires employers is eric's referenced to develop an exposure control plan this is obviously the document that pulls everything together we've been recommending that employers adopt and develop and implement an exposure control plan i think since pretty early on in this pandemic when you look and you consider this along the lines of any significant safety or health hazard the ones that often really matter to the agency or the ones that have written programs so whether it's lockout tag out or respiratory protection has come those all have programs and and there's a reason for that and so i think in clearly the consensus amongst these agencies is that you need it you need a written plan um even if is eric is is right i believe that if you have a good program uh does it neces and it's effective it doesn't necessarily have to be in writing but there are a num there are lots of benefits to it but here that's i guess that's really irrelevant besides the point because it's it's required by rule four um so once you've assessed and then developed your written plan and put that in place step three which really combines rules five through eight uh from our perspective is is adopting the required protective measures controls uh in place and i'll go through those in some more detail in a few minutes then rule 10 requires that you train your employees and managers on a variety of topics and finally rule 11 requires that you maintain records relating to the training that you provided certainly that's something in all the covet inspections that i've managed over the past eight months that's that's something that that the inspectors the co-shows often it's one of the first things they'll ask for they're very interested to see what sort of training has been been provided to employees which in some cases makes sense and in others it's it's a little bit of a head scratcher when they ask you if you've trained employees about the symptoms of the virus even though you're doing daily screenings where they're asked about the symptoms and their temperature is taken so presumably someone who's been screened for the last six months knows what the symptoms are yet you're still expected to train employees about those symptoms you're also required to maintain screening records and i can tell you that the way the rule is written is very vague um it's different to uh or it's difficult to understand what exactly types of records that they are expecting us to keep but they have issued an faq which i think clarifies that and then the last point is notifications so that includes both notifications to the health department regarding coveted positive cases as well as two employees who are deemed to have had close contact with an infected individual for what it's worth it's it's it's it's worth noting that the rule is drafted and as eric referenced this was issued on october 14th uh defines close contact or includes the definition of close contact uh that is the the the old definition if you will that the cdc was was following for most of this pandemic i'm sure that many of you are aware that cdc recently issued a revised definition of close contact that approaches it from a cumulative manner in terms of 15 minutes of overall exposure to infected individuals as opposed to the prior definition of a 15-minute exposure to an an infected individual whether whether this rule will be modified to correct that or address to be consistent with the cdc's definition remains to be seen for those of you that that have operations in virginia you're probably aware that the virginia standard pegs a number of of obligations to or compliance with cdc guidance and recommendations so moving on then to the next slide which is would be your first step in your process of conducting the exposure risk assessment um so when you're conducting uh an ex exposure uh risk assessment uh it's it's done there are a lot of different things or aspects that you want to to take into consideration uh one of the ways that many of our clients look at it and i think it can be effective and helpful is to consider the the two two modes of transmission of the virus both surface to person uh as well as person to person and obviously the science is is change changes often or at least new discoveries are made or new um information is is determined uh so it it seems to bounce back and forth sometimes i think early on obviously many of us recall that we were washing our groceries and things like that and and then the the general consensus was that that wasn't the primary mode of transmission uh and you see certain certain requirements regarding sanitation that may or may not be as effective as other methods but i think the approach overall is to look at how can we prevent surface-to-person transmission and then how can we prevent person-to-person transmission and so both of those considerations go into looking at the tasks that the your employees are performing where are they possibly touching surfaces that might be infected and where are they coming into contact with people who might be infected um so you're looking at the work that they do and then the work environment um in other words where they do it how are they how are they coming into contact with their co-workers uh with third parties whether that's members of the general public uh or or in essence invited guests if you will such as as delivery drivers who are bringing in uh product from the outside which which reminds me i didn't cover on the last slide rule nine which is the industry specific rules um so there are a number of specific industries that have their own rules or additional rules they are not exceedingly detailed so for example manufacturing facilities there are basically two rules that are added to to the other rules for manufacturers which basically deal with entry points for example uh and minimizing uh contact with those third parties who are delivering products or items to the manufacturing facility um so those clients of ours who did a very effective job in the manufacturing industry really looked at their production process from beginning to end beginning what beginning with how does the raw materials or the products that we're working on come into our facility how do we protect the people who are interacting with the delivery people you know do those delivery people have access to the facility are they permitted to use a restaurant if there's a bill of lading or other documents that is signed do we do we do that on paper do we switch to electronic do we forgo forego that completely i'm kind of really getting down to that that granular level um big picture you're looking at number of employees size of the work area what what types of modifications can you make to the work area can you move equipment for one of one of our clients in food processing slowing down the production line in a meat facility so workers can then spread out and are no longer required to work within six feet of each other obviously not all those changes or maybe none of them are feasible for certain employers so then you have to look at other mitigating measures whether that's barriers whether that's changing work practices et cetera and really what you're looking at then is is trying to understand and evaluate both the duration and frequency that that people have to again those surfaces and those other persons uh to determine that the hazards that they may be encountering so then moving on just the next slide is just a brief example i'm not going to spend really any much time on this b t this is a an example of a hazard covert hazard assessment form that we recommend that employers use as they're going through this assessment it helps ensure that you're asking the right questions getting the right answers so you can see in the column on the left we have a category for the job task or type of employee or the category and then you describe in there uh or in that column the potentials for exposure that that that person or that that task has so again if it's the inbound clerk you're talking about they have exposure to the the delivery personnel um if if they then are transporting those materials into the facility uh and interfacing with employees internally then then that would be another potential hazard if the inbound clerk's only role is to take the the product that comes in is inbound and then they deliver it into into storage area or storage rack systems and have no interaction with anybody else then that could very well be the the end of that person's potential exposure apart from you know the time they spend in common areas and then you characterize or classify the exposure level as high medium or low which generally and if you've been tracking osha's advice in this area you know that the very high and high exposure levels are really limited to health care and death care industries the majority of employee employment and tasks fall into medium there are some lower level exposures so perhaps someone who works in a in a a stock room or or does some type of solo work and really has really limited to no exposure with other people they would fall into the low category certainly people that deal with members of the public their parties are are going to fall into that middle level category and then working across the form um so for that task or that that position you then list in the middle column the various controls whether that's engineering controls um administrative controls or safe work practices in that middle column uh and then last but not least in the in the column to the far right uh the types of ppe if any that is determined to be necessary for uh for protecting that individual uh you know we i talk about it quite often in these webinars that the the irony of ppe is that it's many of the complaints certainly early on in this pandemic that i handled for clients um dealt with the lack of ppe and uh the fact of the matter is in the hierarchy of controls that ppe is is often is the real is the lowest level of the pyramid meaning that it provides the least protection the i the goal is to prevent exposure to the virus at all and that's what things like engineering and administrative controls can be so having barriers changing the workplace so you're never within six feet ppe is are things that are protecting the person but because they are personal by definition the lack of ppe uh scares scares many employees and leads to either internal complaints or complaints to osha and i think that's where the one of the values of training is explaining to employees the protective measures the engineering administrative controls that you've you've adopted that essentially keep them safe so they don't need ppe necessarily and i and the hope is that as you explain that to them um then that that assuages any concerns that they might have and hopefully they don't feel the need to complain once they to to osha um or another agency because they they do understand the steps that you're taking to protect them so moving then on to the next slide and this is kind of the i guess where the the rubber hits the road these are the the key elements or requirements again so this would be rules five through eight uh of of the the requirements of the emergency rules so the first one designating an on-site covered coordinator this is is is something that you see in other rules in other states they make i've seen social distancing enforcement coordinators or enforcers in essence it's someone who's tasked with the responsibility of ensuring uh that that the employees who are working are are complying with the rules that they're wearing their masks that they're social distancing uh the screening is being done all the all the various elements now for some for some many employers that may be a very easy box to check because you have uh numerous managers on site for for those of you that that are thinly staffed or have limited personnel at either at a job site or either a temporary job site or a fixed fixed location it doesn't necessarily have to be a manager or supervisor it can be an hourly employee the key from my perspective is to ensure that that people know who that person is and in fact so that person knows that that's what is expected of them and so whether that's something that is is clarified at a pre-shift stand-up meeting or a conversation is had between the manager or supervisor before they leave letting that person know that they are now the coordinator or if it's just sort of a succession planning protocol where where people know who's the most senior or what title it is that holds that position so if it's a retail establishment perhaps the lead cashier or someone uh knows when when super supervision leaves at eight o'clock uh and if they're open until midnight that that lead cashier is the covic coordinator and has whatever authority or responsibility with respect to compliance another essential part of this is providing face covers to your employees they must be provided at no charge and there there should be sufficient uh numbers of them on the work site so so if somebody has forgotten them that there's another one available and you obviously need to require their use i i anecdotally very often going into retail stores it's it's particularly when i get outside of of chicago uh compliance generally tends to be pretty high in the city um but when i've been on on road trips or going to visit clients and you you see people that are wearing a mask around their chin or not covering their nose so again that that would presumably fall to certainly the supervision or to that covid coordinator to make sure people are correctly are wearing the masks first and wearing them correctly second social distancing i've combined in this slide because these many of these things go together you need signage that reminds employees as well as as visitors of the requirements that's a requirement to wear a face covering requirement to social distance um have signed it so that's both signage on the doors or or throughout the the establishment but also ideally floor markings that help remind people or show people where to stand um included barriers as well because if you can't socially distance having barriers it can be an effective administer or i should say engineering control that can protect employees from from that virus despite the closer closer quarters different agencies have looked at the use of barriers differently there was a draft of the oregon temporary standard that eric mentioned is coming down the pike that has changed and it does not appear to be in the rule anymore but for a period of time they were using almost kind of like a high school geometry approach of measuring the height of the employee how how low to the floor the barrier went how high in the air it went how wide it went and then measuring the number of feet or inches to get to the bottom to get come back up and reach the employee's mouth or to go up and over and down and reach the employee's mouth and nose and to measure whether that barrier then created that six feet of separation in other words you know tracking the the presumably the virus the trans transmission of the virus particle uh through that that distance and even looked at say in a bank where you're passing money through a slot that that the bank would get credit for the the height and width of the barrier if the slot was a closed slot that that is open by a switch or or a lever but if it was a continuously open slot like you might pass your credit card through at a sports stadium to pay for your tickets um that that would not they would not get credit for that because the virus could conceivably pass through so it's just something to kind of think about when you're designing your barriers and trying to evaluate how effective they are another key element is is promoting remote work and conducting an evaluation you don't have to have necessarily a standalone policy but you need to be able to show that you engage in the analysis of which positions should be remote which positions need to be present in the workplace and show be able to show that you you paid some some mind to it and gave it some thought relatedly you you certainly should have a rule or protocol in place to prohibit sick employees from coming to work i hope that that's a given um but it's it's one of those things that even though i think we all understand that that michigan osha is expecting you to have that as as part of your rules additionally it talked earlier about sanitation so the surface surface-to-person transmission you need both an enhanced daily cleaning protocol that focuses on high-touch touch surfaces shared items as well as a protocol in place for dealing with positive cases and and you want to to to give your managers and your supervisors the tools so they they know how to answer those questions in other words this person hasn't been in the workplace for uh seven days they last worked on october uh 7th and you know or i should say november 7th and then on november 14th they call off sick and give them the guidance so they know they don't need to clean the workplace uh if the person hasn't been there in seven days but if they were just there yesterday they then they need to take either close out a certain area um and or take other mitigating measures to protect people and then arrange to have that that deep cleaning done of the areas frequented by the sick employee ideally you'd also give them the tools to be able to conduct sort of a contact tracing of searching where that person was and where where they were in the workplace another key point is the is having a medical surveillance program which is essentially a screening program so this includes asking or using a questionnaire to confirm the absence of cdc listed symptoms before employees start work the rule refers to screening of temperatures at or above 100.4 if possible so that is not mandated but it certainly seems to be something our clients continue to do i've heard from some clients that they i think throughout the pandemic they may have screened one person who had a higher temperature but they found that that when they talked about discontinuing the temperature screening that the the employees became very upset and were concerned and so they continued using it because it helped employees feel comfortable and i'm by no means discouraging you from screening but i that may be part of the reason why it's considered or it's referred to as something that to be done if possible but is not mandated the key for screening and under this rule is to certainly ask about the symptoms and receive confirmation from each person each day that they do not have or and have not developed any of those symptoms you should obviously have make sure that when you're doing the screening that the people who are are screening are protected and that you have a plan in place and know what to do if someone discloses or acknowledges having those symptoms you know so they're not just we'll go to your workstation and we'll come get you in a little bit sort of uh if you watch the world series you don't have a justin turner situation where where an employee is is notified of a positive test result um and and then re-enters the workplace um as i mentioned earlier there's also a notification component that requires you to notify both the department of health the rules defines that as immediately or characterizes that as an immediate obligation although it doesn't define to meet what immediate is and notifying close contacts within 24 hours of learning of the infected case and then last but not least i did reference these earlier compliance with the industry specific guidelines so if if you fall into any of the in industries that are found within the rules think that there are about 11 and they range from meat and poultry processing to casinos personal care services in-home care services the many of the main ones involve contractors or construction manufacturing retail restaurants and bars and health care so then moving on and i'll try to run through the next couple of slides before turning it over to ashley the training requirements so you are you're required to provide training to your employees on the infection control measures that you have in your workplace so that that really is kind of chapter inverse of your your exposure or infection control plan making sure employees understand what is being done to protect them understand what is expected of them or required of them and if you think about it you know we we've seen situations where the osha inspectors come on site and they're asking employees about the company's covid plan and they're not really able to answer those questions so if you think about it i mean obviously the the main overarching reason to train them is so so they are safe and so they are um able to to to protect themselves and others but you want to make sure it's done in a way and in a language obviously that they understand that they're you know if it's effective training they both understand it as well as can communicate it to others whether that's a co-worker uh whether that's a visitor or whether that's a government investigator if there is ppe that is being provided to employees certainly this is essential for for healthcare companies uh or healthcare employers but whatever ppe is being provided and in many cases on the sanitation sides you may be introducing new chemicals to your workplace and keep in mind it should be a chemical that's on epa list n which are those chemicals approved to kill the coronavirus you may need to do new ppe hazard assessments and certify those as required by the ppe rule you may need to very well you would need if you have new chemicals you may need new safety data sheets you may need hazcom training so keep keep all that in mind but if you're providing ppe to your employees make sure that they're trained on the proper use of the ppe and even though masks are are deemed to be for source control and not ppe in most cases or most types of masks i should say you still want to train employees on proper wearing of a face covering how to put it on how to put it off how to determine you know if it's providing the adequate source control how to clean it etc you employees need to understand or need to be trained on how to report symptoms of a positive uh or suspected case um how to report unsafe working conditions uh to to management so they they there is a mechanism or a means for them to to do that uh and although it's not in the rule itself um given given past other rules uh and i think just generally to to enhance the knowledge base of your your employees and your workers i do think it's worthwhile providing an overview of the virus and symptoms and modes or means of transmission so so that that can further help them better protect themselves and then moving on to i think my last slide to talk about record keeping so you're gonna you need as i mentioned before you need to maintain records for one year of all the employee training that you do and uh that i understand that that may be a challenge both the training and the record keeping can be something of a challenge because it's what we're trying to keep people safe from covet 19 we're also trying to to socially distance not meet and not have in-person meetings as frequently to potentially have virtual meetings if we are have a meeting we probably don't want to be circulating we don't want to be circulating a sign-in sheet where everyone uses the same pen so think about how you're keeping creating these records obviously you also need to keep records of employees and contractors the rules speaks to visitors and ashley will talk about that in a second because then i think that's a little little misleading keep a log don't create a medica record for those of you that have participated or listened to any of our other webinars as you know we've been we've been banging this drum for quite a long time if you write down people's temperatures and you write down details regarding their symptoms particularly if that's done by a medical professional uh whether it's a nurse's aide or a cna or an rn or whomever you are you are likely then required to keep those records for the the individual's employment a period of employment however long that is plus another 30 years which is not an obligation that you want to take on for these types of records uh and then last be last but not least maintain records of the notifications that you've made as required by the health surveillance portion of the rule so again that that is the reports the department of health as well as all the reports that you've made to individuals in close contact so with that i will turn it over to ashley who's going to talk to you about the number of the frequently asked questions and some of the guidance that i think that she's been able to to get out of the good folks at michigan osha yeah thanks erin um so as aaron said i am the last segment of the presentation and we're going to go over some of those faqs that we've seen and that are commonly asked to us the slide here is actually from the michigan oshawa website where they are currently updating um with frequently asked questions that they're receiving either from their hotline or via email and so i will touch base on all of the ones here listed as well as some additional ones and so the first one um relates to the question of who must be screened and in our research we've come to learn that you must keep a record of the daily screening for each employee and contractor entering the workplace and um aaron has mentioned this already but i just wanted to double back that it's just a record of the screening having been performed and not necessarily the temp like what the person's actual temperature was when you were doing the screening um and this screening does not apply to customers or visitors who are entering the workplace unless your workplace is a casino and then there are some special requirements here for healthcare employers who must document daily screening protocol for all of their patients as well as their employees and so when we talk about the records of screening to make sure that you guys are not running into the requirement of keeping the record for the duration of their of the employees employment plus the 30-plus years requirement um we are encouraging people to just maintain copies of the completed questionnaires um and a lot that says you know employee a with screen day one day two day three day four um i know there were quests i think i saw a question in the chat about um keeping the record and privacy concerns and as aaron has mentioned not you will be subject to keeping the record for the duration of the employees employment plus the 30 years requirement and then i know there's also a blog on our website that discusses ada concerns as well when you start keeping more detailed records so the record of the screening should just indicate you know that each employee was screened every day and that they have passed that screening and the rule indicates that you must keep that record for one year and so when it comes to the remote work policy miosha recognizes that employers must determine who may work remotely as well as those that must report to work and so it is essential that businesses during this time have a thoughtful reason policy for why work that is completed in person cannot be feasibly completed remotely and so this is what miosha will look for and the focus will not be necessarily on evaluating the business's judgment of feasibility unless there's an obvious misapplication but generally there's an acknowledgement that employers compliance with this or that my osha will accept a written policy which indicates that employers are not to perform or employees are not to perform in person work activities where the work activity can feasibly be completed remotely and so this written policy may be a part of the covet 19 preparedness and response plan it does not have to be a stand-alone document that employees employers have to create and so looking forward to the shared spaces and the required face coverings under rule 7 6 so it includes during in-person meetings and restrooms and hallways and a shared space is essentially a space that is utilized by multiple individuals at the same time where those individuals are unable to maintain the recommended six feet of social distancing and the space lacks any physical barriers and as we look to the next slide there's a little bit more detail on there about spaces like cubicles and so um thinking about shared spaces and office spaces that have cubicles the cubicle is not a shared space um so long as there are six feet of social of distance between the employees and or the cubicle has barriers that separate each employee sitting in their cubicle um so an employee would be required to wear a mask in their cubicle if someone else enters that particular cubicle um or if the employee leaves their cubicle and they then enter the common shared spaces like a hallway or the there's no barrier in between men and the next person and they're not able to be six feet apart and so here one of the questions that i've been getting a lot is who's responsible for maintaining the covid program work records especially when there's a multi there are multiple employers present at a work site and the answer that we've been giving is the key is to make sure that all employees entering the work site are screened and that specifically in the construction context where there are multiple subcontractors each subcontractor is responsible for having their own cobit 19 preparedness and response plan and so as the employees are entering the work site it's acceptable if only one person is doing the screening but then each subcontractor should is suggested to keep their own records that this screening did occur this employee did pass so that when if an inspection officer comes to the job site or when the inspection officer comes to the job site each subcontractor is able to point to their own preparedness and response plan and they also have records even though only one person or one individual on the site is responsible for screening every single employee regardless of who their employer is and um stemming from that is a question about the covitt coordinators and so the covert coordinators are required under um the michigan rule and the rule specifically requires that the coordinator be present at all times that the site is open and operational and so what that means is where there are multiple employers if the general contractor is on site um at all times that the site is open and operational and willing and able to assist the subcontractors then the general contractor is more than welcome to be the cobra coordinator however if there's any time that the gc will not be on sites and the subcontractors must take on that role and a pro tip here is to make sure that there's a written agreement as to who will be the coordinator and that they understand that as the covert coordinator they must be present at all times um documentation here as i think aaron has said and eric have both said is really important especially as we think about covering subcontractors and general contractors in the event that an inspector does come to the workplace and so looking to construction sites um and other requirements that require so the rule actually requires that um each employer take a take and take a look at the hazards present at their work site and i think aaron has talked about this and so what that means where there's a multiple where there are multiple employers present especially looking at a construction site it is okay if the general contractor is in charge and willing to provide documentation to all subcontractors and plan and evaluate all the tasks and procedures present on the site however if the gc is not willing to take on this role then each subcontractor would be responsible for evaluating all the tasks and procedures on the site that they are performing and again we just see that it's important that there's an agreement in writing about whether or not the general contractor or the subcontractor will take on the role because if there's an agreement in writing that the subcontractor will perform the evaluation and the subcontra contractor does not then everyone will be cited by michigan osha if the agreement is in writing that the general contractor will perform the evaluation and the general contractor does not perform the evaluation then only the general contractor will be cited and then here for whatever reason there is not a written agreement and the agreement is oral and the oral agreement is that the general contractor will perform the evaluation and they fail to do so then generally everyone on the job site gets cited by michigan osha unless a subcontractor has done it for have done the evaluation for their crew and with that um i want to refer you this is actually one of my last slides i wanted to take the time to refer you guys back to our website which will provide additional information not just about michigan osha but i know there was mention about oregon and its latest developments and any other developments that are coming down the pipeline as states are filling in gaps and creating their own emergency temporary standards i also want to encourage you all to check out our blogs which talk about fat ocean generally um and employment generally as they relate to coba 19 and other issues that may come up in your workforce and then last but certainly certainly not least keep an eye out for the other webinars that we do have coming up um in the coming weeks and last couple of months of the year so i wanted to thank everybody for joining us and for sticking with us a little bit past the hour this we did think was uh such an important issue that these new covet specific rules are popping up around the country now they're all a little bit different many of you with national uh presence uh have to deal with this you know very challenging patchwork of slightly different requirements or dramatically different requirements around the country so we're going to do our best to keep up with all the different states that are implementing enforceable rules like michigan and to help get you as much information as you can where it is often lacking within the rule itself so thank you so much for joining us today and we hope you can join us for the rest of our uh webinars in the osha webinar series and of course you know we're huge ocean nerds we love talking about this stuff so don't ever hesitate uh to reach out to any of us here in the osha practice at khan mossiel uh we'd love to be a resource for you so thanks and good luck and stay safe and we'll talk to you soon