OSHA Decides Existing Safety Regulations Applies to Telecommuters
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Companies may not know it, but they are responsible for the health and safety of their employees who work from home. In a clarification of existing regulations, the government says federal workplace rules do apply to the estimated-19.6 million adults who telecommute from home offices. Here's CNN's Kathleen Koch with the story.</s>KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the nation's nearly-20 million telecommutors, the advisory means their home work site must now meet the same broad health and safety requirements that apply in every workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration isn't establishing a new rule but is responding to a 1997 inquiry from an employer to clarify the regulations already on the books. It applies not just to telecommuters but also employees who work at home occasionally.</s>GAIL MARTIN, INTL. TELECOMMUTERS ASSOCIATION: I think that is's going to cause some barriers to companies that perhaps haven't started a telework program, yet teleworkers have increased from four million in 1990 to our recent survey showed 19.6 million.</s>KOCH: Companies are now responsible for not only making certain all home work sites are safe, but are liable for any illnesses or injuries that occur if the work sites aren't safe. Employers say the decision goes too far.</s>PAT CLEARY, NATL. ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS: This is nuts. This goes far beyond what the Occupational Safety and Health Act or the Constitution ever anticipated. This, plain and simple, is the long arm of OSHA reaching into people's homes. We think it's wrong. We oppose it.</s>KOCH: OSHA says it has no intention of inspecting private homes. Instead, it suggests employers conduct periodic safety checks of employee home workspaces. It makes clear there are limits, saying, "an employer is responsible for ensuring that its employees have a safe and healthful workplace, not a safe and healthful home," and it puts responsibility on workers to notify employers of problems, saying, "the employer is responsible for correcting hazards of which it is aware or should be aware." Unions believe the advisory makes sense.</s>PEG SEMINARIO, AFL-CIO: This is a matter of common sense. We don't think that OSHA should be going out and inspecting people's homes, but we do think that employers and employees should be thinking about safety and health on the job regardless of where the work is conducted.</s>KOCH: So while the decision extends protection to home workers, it may mean there will be fewer of them and more employees back in the nation's offices and on its highways. Reporting live in Washington, I'm Kathleen Koch. Back to you.