Side Bar - Your Protection For Exercising Rights Under OHSA

The law expressly protects employees from discharge or discipline in two ways.

First, the employer cannot discriminate against an employee because the employee has filed a complaint with OSHA, asked OSHA to inspect the workplace, talked to the OSHA inspector during the walkaround, or otherwise assisted OSHA in the investigation.

Second, the law protects a worker who refuses to perform a job that is likely to cause death or serious injury. As a general rule, employees do not have a right to refuse to perform work, and normally an employer could discipline or discharge an employee for such a refusal. However, an employee cannot be discharged or disciplined for refusing to perform a job if all the following circumstances apply:

• The reason for the refusal is a good-faith belief that there is a real danger of death or serious injury.
• A reasonable person in the employee's position would conclude there is a real danger of death or serious injury.
• There is insufficient time to eliminate the danger through the regular OSHA channels.
• The employee has asked the employer unsuccessfully to fix the problem.

In addition, employees acting together concerning safety-related matters are generally engaged in protected concerted activity under the NLRA and cannot be disciplined or discharged because they have acted together. In addition, a refusal to work in good faith because of abnormally dangerous conditions is not a strike under federal law.