Home Office Safety: Who's Responsible?
Question: Have regulators always lacked basic common sense, or is this something they lose only after going on the government payroll?
While this may be a query for the ages, those of us with visionary employers allowing us to telecommute to work from our homes--there reportedly are some 20 million full-time telecommuters and millions more doing it part time--are confronted with the latest example of regulatory vacuousness.
Several news reports this week tell of a new interpretation offered by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) regarding federal health and safety regulations. According to this OSHA decree, set down in a November advisory letter but only coming to light now, employers are responsible to report and are liable for injuries occurring in home offices. Indeed, a business could even be liable for injuries incurred outside the home office, such as on a staircase leading to a home setting.
Potential home-office problems include ergonomically-incorrect furniture, fires resulting from overburdened electrical circuits, improper lighting, improper heating, improper cooling, improper ventilation, lack of emergency medical plans and first-aid kits, training needed for OSHA compliance, and so on. Employers will be exposed to penalties and fines for failing to maintain a safe working environment, and will be responsible for making necessary corrections.
Always trying to be helpful, OSHA suggests: "One obvious and effective means of ensuring employees safety would be periodic safety checks of employee working spaces" by employers. So, on top of all the added costs resulting from the aforementioned problems, add travel and field expenses for the business owner. However, OSHA assures us all that the federal government will not be routinely inspecting homes.
The implications of extending workplace regulations into tens of millions of homes across America are staggering. And make no mistake, if left standing, such regulatory expansiveness will eventually result in federal inspectors ringing home doorbells across the nation if somebody happens to be hard at work inside.
Only government bureaucrats and union officials could love such measures. Government bureaucrats because it would increase their numbers and powers. Labor leaders because they hate any working conditions or establishments not conducive to union organization, like home offices.
From the business owner's point of view, the increase in costs, risks ,and liabilities will be exponential. Businesses either will have to pick up the tab for a bevy of new regulatory-related costs, or simply lose the benefits derived from having a productive telecommuting workforce.
The added costs will force many businesses to refrain from offering employees telecommuting options. This major benefit of today's computer and telecommunications revolution will be dealt a severe blow due to government regulatory overreach.
As always, smaller enterprises will get hit hardest. According to regulatory economist Thomas Hopkins, on a per employee basis, regulatory costs run about 80% higher for businesses with fewer than 500 employees as compared to businesses with more than 500 employees. And the costs essentially grow, the smaller the enterprise. That means smaller businesses stand a greater chance of losing talented professionals looking to telecommute, or not being able to attract them in the first place.
As for the employee's perspective, I can speak from first-hand knowledge, and may I declare that it is none of government's darn business the way I work at home. In fact, dare I say, as long as I am performing my job well, it isn't my employer's business either.
The government forcing my employer to make sure I am doing my home-based work in certain kinds of chairs at certain kinds of desks is ridiculous. Even more preposterous is the notion that my employer should be responsible for my home's electrical wiring, heating system, air conditioning unit, and structural integrity.
I once rented a house in which I used a room for a home office that had no air conditioning and the window was painted shut--was this a cooling and ventilation issue for my employer? In another rented house, I had no heat in my home office. (FYI: I have since given up living in such crummy rentals in favor of a new home of my own.)
What if I decide to do some work on a laptop computer while sitting in my Adirondack rocker on my backyard deck, or work at my ergonomically-incorrect dining room table? And what if my son decides to leave a Star Wars X-Wing Fighter on the floor of my office (which has been known to happen) and I trip over it? What are my employer's risks and responsibilities in all of these cases?
The common sense answer is clear: None. My employer should have no responsibility whatsoever for the decisions I make about my home and home office.
Action is needed to stop this abusive, invasive and costly step taken by OSHA. When arriving back in Washington, D.C., later this month, Congress should pass straightforward legislation simply stating that the responsibility for home offices lies with home-based workers.
As one home office worker told MSNBC.com: "The home environment is the responsibility of the person who owns the home. I find it hard to fathom why employers would be involved with that." Amen.
Raymond J. Keating is Chief Economist of the Small Business Survival Committee, and co-author of the new book, U.S. by the Numbers: Figuring What's Left, Right, and Wrong With America State by State. Mr. Keating also co-authored D.C. By the Numbers: A State of Failure, and has written more than 300 policy studies, book reviews, and articles published in such periodicals as The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, The Journal of Commerce, The Washington Times, Newsday, New York Post, Insight, The Freeman, Human Events, and many more. He regularly testifies before the Congress, and is an experienced and sought-after spokesman on a wide range of political and economic issues. He is currently at work on his second book tentatively titled New York By the Numbers: State and City in Perpetual Crisis.
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