General Industry Standards

The general industry standards apply not only to manufacturing, wholesale, and retail establishments, but to any employment in any industry — including construction, maritime, and agriculture — to the extent that particular standards for these other industries do not apply.

Although maritime standards covered most of the operations of a shipbuilding and dry-dock firm, a violation of a general industry standard was found in a noncomplying scaffold used by workers painting a sign on a machine shop. The work happened to be in a shipyard, but the circumstances might have existed anywhere that a sign was being painted on a building.

Particular industry standards take priority over general standards if they address identical hazards. For example, the construction standards apply to every employment and place of employment of every employee engaged in construction work. Construction work is defined as work for construction, alteration, or repair, including painting and decorating. Construction industry employers remain subject to the general industry standards where no construction standard applies.

Standards Common to All Workplaces

Some standards impose similar requirements on all industry sectors. Two areas subject to this type of standard are:

• Personal protective equipment. These standards, included separately in the standards for each industry segment (except agriculture), require you to provide employees, at no cost to them, with personal protective equipment designed to protect then against certain hazards. This can range from protective helmets in construction and cargo handling work to prevent head injuries, to eye protection, hearing protection, hard-toed shoes, special goggles (for welders, for example), and gauntlets for iron workers.
• Hazard communication. if you are a manufacturer and/or importer of hazardous materials, you must conduct a hazard evaluation of the products you manufacture or import. If the product is found to be hazardous under the terms of the standard, containers of the material must be appropriately labeled and the first shipment of the material to a new customer must be accomplished by a materiel safety data sheet (MSDS). Employers who receive hazardous materials must train their employees, using the MSDSs they receive, to recognize and avoid the hazards the materials present.