b'you must also test all employees who were in any way connected to the accident and injury.of the OSHA interpretation memorandum itself, as well asthenewrecordkeepingrule.Whilesomepeopleare our interpretation of it, to all of the conference attendees.interpretingOSHAsactiononOctober11thtopermit But judging from the number of handouts we had left overvirtually uncontrolled mandatory drug testing, I have to after the conference, I am going to take the remainder ofrespectfully disagree with that position. The new guideline this column to discuss the contents of that handout and thedoes not explicitly support post-accident drug testing of ALL OSHA interpretation. injured workers, regardless of the reason, for their injuries. The new interpretation memorandum by OSHA announcesIf you know that the root cause for the accident could not a partial lifting of the prohibition of mandatory post-accidenthavebeendrugoralcoholintoxication,youarestillnot drug testing, as well as a partial lifting of the prohibition ofpermitted to require a drug or alcohol test. Going back to rate-based safety incentive programs. I say partial because Ithe example used before by OSHA, if an employee is mowing feel that OSHAs new interpretation has some strings attached.the grass outside your office and is stung by a bee and has an allergic reaction, it will be difficult for you to argue that Rate-based incentive programs are based on employeesyou did not know that drug or alcohol intoxication did not avoiding either lost time or OSHA recordable injuries for ahaveanythingtodowiththeinjury.Youare,however,to period of time to receive a reward from the employer. OSHArequire drug and/or alcohol testing when the root cause of stated in the October 11, 2018 interpretation that employersthe accident is in question and drugs or alcohol could have could maintain such programs, but only if they also do one orbeen a contributing factor. In this case, if you are going to do more of the following: drug and alcohol testing of the injured employee, you must Incentive program that rewards employees for identifyingalso test all employees who were in any way connected to the unsafe conditions accident and injury. You can not use this testing as a way to Training program for all employees to reinforce their rightfocus on one troublesome employee with an end goal of being to report injuries free of retaliation able to terminate that one employee. And, if more than the injured worker tests positive you will have to take the same Amechanismforevaluationemployeewillingnesstodisciplinary action against all employees who tested positive. report injuries In both situations it is up to you, the employer, to be able Ofcourse,ifyouchosetousearate-basedincentiveto show that you are not administering your program in a programyoustillrunariskofanallegationofsafetyway that would deter employees from reporting injuries and retaliation, even if you implement one of the steps set outillnesses. You will also have to show that you consistently above. Personally, I am still troubled by rate-based incentiveenforce all legitimate work rules. This is part of the OSHA systems and recommend that if you use an incentive program,emphasis on requiring a solid safety culture in every company. you focus on safety compliance, not recordable or lost timeIn the next issue of MR, I will return to the lessons learned injuries. from the responses we received from those contractors who Thesecondpartoftheclarification,andtheoneofparticipated in the SHARP Safety Recognition Program. They probablygreaterinterest,istheoneonmandatorypost- were willing to open parts of their safety programs for review accident drug testing. Here again OSHA has backed off ofwith the goal of improving their existing safety programs.the position it took on December 1, 2016 as it interpreted www.mrca.orgMidwest Roofer 9'