Promoting Health and Safety for Workers with Disabilities

Jul 29

Introduction

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created a Webpage dedicated to workers with disabilities. OSHA offers helpful health and safety resources for people with disabilities and their employers. On its website, OSHA maintains the following resources for workers and employers:

Reasonable Accommodation Request Form

Request for Information on Reasonable Accommodations under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 USC 791)

Employers - Workers With Disabilities

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created a Webpage dedicated to workers with disabilities.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created a Webpage dedicated to workers with disabilities. It is a great resource that can give you some great information on what your responsibilities are as an employer, and what the responsibilities of your employees are when it comes to safety.

You can find this website at www.osha.gov/SLTC/workplace-health-safety/disability_information1.html

OSHA offers helpful health and safety resources for people with disabilities and their employers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has a web page dedicated to workers with disabilities. This webpage includes helpful health and safety resources for employers, employees, and family members who have a loved one with a disability.

In addition to offering information on the basics of promoting safe work practices in the workplace, OSHA also offers tips on what employers can do to make their facilities accessible for people with disabilities. The agency provides guidance on how to match equipment or tools with an employee's functional abilities; what changes should be made if you're unable to provide an accommodation; how to create effective communication channels between yourself and your employees; best practices for training supervisors about workplace accommodations; how notifying your workers about new accommodations will help them succeed in their jobs; how providing documentation outlining your company's commitment toward accommodating employees can help build trust among those who may otherwise worry about being penalized by management if they need extra time off work due to an injury sustained during their shift (such as carpal tunnel syndrome).

On its website, OSHA maintains the following resources for workers and employers.

The agency also maintains the following resources for workers and employers on its website:

OSHA's Disability Program
OSHA's Disability Program for Small Businesses
OSHA's Disability Program for State Plan States (those states that have their own disability programs)
OSHA's Disability Program for Federal Employers
OSHA's Disability Program for Federal Contractors

For more information, visit Employers - Workers With Disabilities on the OSHA Webpage.

To learn more about safety and health for workers with disabilities, visit Employers - Workers With Disabilities on the OSHA webpage.

The page provides helpful resources for employers, employees working with disabilities, and their families. It includes a list of resources for people with disabilities and their employers to better educate them about what they can do to keep each other safe in the workplace.

Also provided are links to related sites that offer free materials dedicated to promoting health and safety in different industries.

Employers must use reasonable care to provide a safe workplace for their employees.

Employers must use reasonable care to provide a safe workplace for their employees. This includes providing reasonable accommodations, such as wheelchairs and ramps, when necessary to allow workers with disabilities to perform their jobs safely. These accommodations may not be an undue hardship on the employer, that is, they must not cost more than a reasonable amount of money or interfere with other important business operations. For example:

Employers can meet their obligation by having enough wheelchairs available for all employees who need them (e.g., someone who uses a wheelchair because she has multiple sclerosis). If the number of people who need wheelchairs exceeds the number of chairs available at work, then employers must make sure there are enough chairs at each location where these individuals work so they don't have to transfer from one building or office area to another in order find one.[1]
An employer could provide ramps instead of stairs if an employee needs assistance getting into and out of buildings because she uses crutches due to arthritis.[2] They could also install handrails along stairways so that she doesn't fall down them as easily.[3]

Some specific ways to help workers with disabilities are

Ensure that your workplace is wheelchair accessible.
Provide training for employees about how to interact with workers with disabilities, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Ensure that all necessary equipment is in place to allow workers with disabilities to safely perform their jobs.
Provide reasonable accommodation for workers who need it, and monitor the effectiveness of accommodations after they are implemented.

Conclusion

To summarize, OSHA has created a webpage to help employers understand how they can make their workplaces safer for workers with disabilities. It also offers various resources on its website that can help protect workers from injury while they are on the job.