www.agc.org • March 2013

Hawaii OSH Changes Construction Safety Regulations Regarding Inspections

Effective Nov. 2, 2012, Hawaii Administrative Rule 12-110 General Requirements were amended. The most significant change is HAR 12-110-3(b)(1) which requires daily safety and health inspections.

THE NEW REQUIREMENT STATES:

§12-110-3 Safety and health inspections.

(a) The general contractor of every construction or demolition project on which employees are engaged shall arrange to have inspections made during the period of the project for the purpose of assuring compliance with the Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Law. Where there is no general contractor, the owner shall be responsible or shall designate one particular contractor to be responsible to perform the necessary safety inspections.

(b) Inspections shall be conducted with sufficient quality, frequency and scope to identify recognized hazards and ensure their correction in order to prevent workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities. At minimum inspections shall be in accordance with this schedule:

(1) Projects employing 1 to 99 persons, at any single moment in the work day, shall have an employee assigned to make at least one inspection each workday;

(2) Projects employing 100 to 199 persons shall have two employees assigned, each to make at least one inspection each work day; and

(3) Projects employing 200 or more persons shall have one additional designated employee for each 300 persons above 199, each to make at least one inspection each workday.

(c) Written records of the daily safety and health inspections shall be kept on the project site for review by the director for the duration of the project. Inspection records shall include, at minimum, the following:

(1) The date and start time of the inspection;

(2) The name of the employee conducting the inspection;

(3) The scope (project areas) of the inspection, including the names of all contractors and subcontractors covered by the scope of the inspection;

(4) A brief description of all potential and actual hazards noted during the inspection;

(5) Name and title of the person responsible for correcting the identified hazards noted during the inspection;

(6) Information regarding how the hazard was eliminated, corrected or abated including the inspector’s recommendations for preventing the recurrence of the hazards.

THE OLD REQUIREMENT STATES:

§12-110-3 Safety inspections.

(a) The general contractor of every construction or demolition project on which more than 30 employees are engaged shall arrange to have inspections made during the period of the project for the purpose of assuring compliance with the standards of part 3 of this title. Where there is no general contractor, the owner shall be responsible or shall designate one particular contractor to be responsible to perform the necessary safety inspections.

(b) Required inspections shall be in accordance with this schedule:

(1) Projects employing 30 to 100 persons shall have an employee assigned to make at least one inspection each workday;

(2) Projects employing 100 to 200 persons shall have two employees assigned, each to make at least one inspection each work day; and

(3) Projects employing more than 200 persons shall have one designated employee for each 300 persons above 200, each to make at least one inspection each workday.

(c) Written records of the daily safety inspection shall be kept on the project site for review by the director.