Most employers are in woeful shape when it comes to having written environmental health and safety programs. For example, the most frequently cited OSHA violation in general industry in recent years has been failing to have, or having an insufficient, written hazard communication program. And in a survey estimate of 123,200 manufacturing plants that used respirators, OSHA found that only 25.5 percent had a required written respiratory protection program. Only about 8 percent had a written program that would comply with OSHA's pre-1998 respiratory protection standard.
There are ways to break this EHS writer's block, especially since most safety and health programs contain a high percentage of common 'boilerplate' language. Services will sell you pre-written, ready-to-edit OSHA programs on a floppy disk (see the classified ads in back of this magazine). You can also obtain written programs from the Internet.