Hazard Communication StandardHazCom

The Hazard Communication Standard — OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1200, HazCom 2012 — is the right-to-know rule that requires an employer to tell a worker what hazardous chemicals are in the workplace, what they can do to the worker, and how to protect against them. The 2012 revision aligned the US with the Globally Harmonized System, which gave every chemical the same 16-section safety data sheet and the same label with the pictogram, the signal word, the hazard statement, and the precautionary statement. The four requirements are a written program, a chemical inventory, an SDS for every hazardous chemical, and training — and HazCom is, year after year, among the most frequently cited OSHA standards.

HazCom is cited so often because the requirements look simple and are not. The written program has to name the person responsible and describe how the inventory, the sheets, and the training are kept current; the inventory has to list every hazardous chemical and match the labels on the containers; the SDS has to be the current revision and accessible on the shift the worker is exposed; the training has to cover the hazards of the specific chemicals the worker uses, not a generic briefing. The failure that produces the citation is the one a QEHS platform is built to close: the inventory that drifted from the containers, the sheet that was the old revision, the training that was never completed. See SDS, GHS, and PPE.