Those of us under Federal OSHA can let our contractors follow their own LOTO program/practices AS LONG AS they explain them to us. However, in some states, their OSHA plan requires contractors to support the “on-site employer’s” LOTO program. As I have written about, most workplaces struggle to manage their contractors PROPERLY when LOTO is involved in their work scope.
From expecting contractors to be LOTO experts on our equipment/process/machinery, including the energy types, their magnitudes, the means to isolate them and the means to verify a ZES – most contractors end up placing themselves in serious jeopardy. This is ON TOP of the fact that when a contractor uses his/her LOTO locks in our workplaces, they may be of a different COLOR, SHAPE, or SIZE than what the affected and other employees have been trained to recognize as a LOTO lock. So the state of California [OSHA] requires contractors to follow the on-site employer’s LOTO procedures…
§3314. The Control of Hazardous Energy for the Cleaning, Repairing, Servicing, Setting-Up, and Adjusting Operations of Prime Movers, Machinery, and Equipment, Including Lockout/Tagout
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(k) Whenever outside servicing personnel are to be engaged in activities covered by this section, the on-site employer’s lockout or tagout procedures shall be followed.
OR-OSHA has this to say about Contractors and LOTO on a host’s site and working on the host’s equipment:
Multi-employer Scenario.
A contractor employer performing maintenance work on a boiler pipeline fails to verify that all of the residual energy in the line has been safely relieved because she believes the host employer efficiently de-energized the unit. The contractor employees are injured as a result of opening the flange, and the contractor blames the host employer for its failure to control the hazardous energy adequately.
The CSHO needs to thoroughly document the facts, in the case file, to determine whether the 1910.147(f)(2) outside personnel provisions were met and to determine whether the agreed upon energy control responsibilities (e.g., contractual responsibilities) of each party were met. Both the host and contractor employers have independent obligations to provide protection under this performance-oriented standard for their respective employees. In this scenario, the CSHO should determine which employer(s) had the responsibility to verify energy isolation based upon each employer’s respective energy control procedure.
The host employer often will have greater familiarity with the energy control procedures used at the host facility; however, at 1910.147(f)(2)(i), the standard requires the host and contract employers to inform each other about their respective energy control procedures. Such coordination is necessary to ensure that both sets of employees will be protected from the hazardous energy. The contractor must take reasonable steps consistent with its authority to protect its employees if the contractor knows, or has reason to know, that the host’s energy control procedures are deficient or otherwise insufficient to provide the necessary protection to its employees.
NOTE: The guidance provided in PD A-257, Multi-Employer Citation Policy, must be used to determine host employer and contractor compliance with the LOTO standard. In all cases, the decision to issue 1910.147 citations to the host or contractor employer should be based on all of the relevant facts and the established policy for exposing, creating, correcting, and controlling employers. In IBP, Inc. v. Herman, 144 F.3d 861 (D.C. 1998), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that a host employer was not liable for the lockout/tagout violations of an independent contractor because, apart from pointing out the violations to the contractor, the host’s control over those violations was limited to the cancellation of the contract.