The proposed OSHA standard will NOT apply to all public sector emergency responders. The scope is limited to Emergency Service Organizations (ESOs) and responders under OSHA’s jurisdiction. ONLY public ESOs that are in state plan states are under OSHA’s jurisdiction and therefore the analysis excludes public ESOs and responders in non-state-plan states. The following states and territories have state plans and public ESOs in these states are therefore covered by the draft standard:
| • Alaska • Arizona • California • Connecticut |
• Hawaii • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa |
• Kentucky • Maine • Maryland • Michigan |
• Minnesota • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York |
| • Nevada • North Carolina • Oregon • Puerto Rico |
• South Carolina • Tennessee • Utah • Vermont |
• Virginia • Washington • Wyoming |
An unusual aspect of the draft standard is that many emergency responders are unpaid volunteers rather than paid employees. Some state plans cover volunteers and some do not. OSHA has preliminarily determined that the following state plan states do not consider volunteers to be employees and therefore do not extend OSHA protections to volunteers.
- Connecticut
- Kentucky
- Maryland
- New Mexico
- North Carolina
- Tennessee
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Wyoming
OSHA has preliminarily determined that there are approximately 5,200 volunteer firefighting ESOs, 200 separate Emergency Medical Services (EMS) ESOs, 173,000 volunteer firefighting responders and 14,000 volunteer ambulance responders in OSHA state plan states that extend occupational safety and health coverage to volunteers.
Source: https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/er-ser-issues.pdf