
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 10, 1995                   TAG: 9502100031
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OSHA TO STOP FINING HEROISM ON THE JOB

GOOD SAMARITANS now can dive in to save co-workers - and they won't be penalized if they forget their hard hats.

Federal job-safety officials will give greater leeway to employees who put themselves at risk to rescue co-workers from danger.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has said it no longer will cite employers in such instances unless safety training and procedures are lax.

OSHA's rule essentially duplicates procedures in Virginia and will have little impact in the state, said Dick Crawford, director of health enforcement for the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry's job-safety program.

OSHA's more lenient policy on rescues, issued Jan. 25, nonetheless will be incorporated into state job-safety law, Crawford said. Virginia industrial-safety regulators oversee all industries except maritime businesses, shipyards and federal installations such as the Army Ammunition Plant in Radford.

The decision is good news for employers, because it lessens their chance of fines.

``If an employee does something on their own will, the company doesn't have to worry that OSHA will clobber them,'' said Tim Fitzgerald, director of the Safety Council in Roanoke, which provides safety-related services to Southwest Virginia businesses and the public.

OSHA's action stems from a get-tough policy concerning workers who handle chemicals or work in confined spaces such as trenches and shafts, Fitzgerald said. In May 1993, it cited a plumbing contractor in Boise, Idaho, whose employee climbed into a caved-in trench without a hard hat to rescue a partially buried worker.

OSHA later withdrew the citation, saying it had gone too far. That led the agency to declare last month that it won't ``interfere with or regulate workers who put themselves at risk to save another individual. Nor will we issue citations to employers whose employees voluntarily undertake acts of heroism to save another from imminent harm.''

OSHA's statement emphasized that companies must continue to train employees who perform hazardous work and that they will be cited for failing to do so. Fines can reach $70,000.

Rick Motley, vice president and general manager of ChemSolv Inc. in Roanoke, had not heard of OSHA's action but said officials were taking the right approach.

``It's nice to know if you have a situation like that, you're not going to be hammered if someone acts on instinct or adrenaline,'' Motley said.

by CNB