Health and safety basics for US employers
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Employers in the United States have a general legal duty to provide workers with a workplace free from recognized hazards that are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. That obligation comes from federal law, primarily the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and it applies to nearly every private-sector employer in the country.
Who enforces workplace safety and who is covered
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the federal agency responsible for setting and enforcing workplace safety standards. Most private-sector employers and their workers fall under OSHA's jurisdiction.
State governments can also run their own occupational safety programs — called "State Plans" — if they are approved by OSHA and maintain standards at least as effective as the federal ones. Around half of US states operate a State Plan covering private-sector workers, and some cover state and local government employees as well. If your business operates in one of those states, you answer to the state agency, not directly to federal OSHA, though the practical obligations are similar.
Federal government employees have separate coverage under a different part of the OSH Act. Self-employed individuals with no employees are generally not covered.
The General Duty Clause and specific standards
The General Duty Clause requires employers to keep the workplace free from recognized serious hazards even when no specific OSHA standard addresses that exact situation. This is the catch-all that regulators lean on for emerging risks — extreme heat exposure, for example, or workplace violence in certain industries — where detailed rules have not yet been finalized.
Beyond the General Duty Clause, OSHA publishes industry-specific and hazard-specific standards. Some of the most widely applicable include:
- Hazard Communication (HazCom): If employees may be exposed to hazardous chemicals, you must maintain Safety Data Sheets (SDS), label containers properly, and train workers on the hazards.
- Recordkeeping: Employers with more than ten employees in most industries must record work-related injuries and illnesses on OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301. The 300A summary must be posted in the workplace each year from February 1 through April 30.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Where engineering or administrative controls cannot adequately reduce a hazard, employers must provide appropriate PPE at no cost to the employee.
- Emergency action plans: Employers with more than ten employees are generally required to have a written emergency action plan covering fire and other emergencies.
Industry sectors such as construction, maritime, and agriculture have additional detailed standards specific to their hazards.
Posting, training, and anti-retaliation requirements
Every employer covered by OSHA must display the official OSHA poster (or a state equivalent) where employees can see it. The poster explains workers' rights under the law.
Training is not optional where OSHA standards require it. Requirements vary by standard — for example, forklift operators must be trained and evaluated before operating equipment, and workers entering permit-required confined spaces need specific instruction. Training must generally be conducted in a language and at a vocabulary level workers can understand.
Retaliation against an employee for reporting a safety concern, filing an OSHA complaint, or participating in an inspection is prohibited under Section 11(c) of the OSH Act. OSHA also administers anti-retaliation provisions under more than 20 other federal laws covering areas such as environmental reporting and transportation safety. Complaints must typically be filed within 30 days of the retaliatory action, though that window varies by statute.
Inspections, citations, and penalties
OSHA conducts inspections without advance notice. Inspections are triggered by worker complaints, reported fatalities or hospitalizations, programmed high-hazard industry targeting, or follow-ups on prior violations. You have the right to require the inspector to present credentials and to accompany them during the walkthrough.
Employers must report any work-related fatality to OSHA within eight hours, and any in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours.
Citations can be classified as other-than-serious, serious, willful, or repeated. Penalty amounts are adjusted periodically for inflation, so check OSHA's current schedule for exact figures. Willful and repeated violations carry substantially higher penalties than other categories. Employers have the right to contest citations within 15 working days of receiving them.
State-level additions and practical priorities
State Plan states sometimes go further than federal OSHA minimums. California's Cal/OSHA, for instance, requires a written Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) for virtually all employers — something federal OSHA does not mandate nationally. Washington State has its own detailed rules through L&I (Labor and Industries). If you operate across multiple states, you need to map your obligations in each jurisdiction rather than assuming federal standards are the ceiling.
A practical starting point for any employer: conduct a baseline hazard assessment of your workplace, document what you find, fix what you can, and build a written record of your safety program. That documentation becomes important if OSHA ever inspects or an employee files a complaint.
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