Multi-employer worksite basics

By Trent Cotney, Adams and Reese, LLC. 

Understanding how to navigate OSHA’s policies for worksites that have more than one employer present. 

Worksites are busy places and adding more than one employer only adds to the chaos. When general contractors, subcontractors and more have workers on locations, priorities and hierarchies can quickly get muddled. This creates confusion when issues pop up. For example, if a federal workplace safety violation occurs, which employer is responsible? This is why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created a specific policy for multi-employer worksite citations. For this article, the Roofing Contractors Association of Washington (RCAW) reached out to our experts at Adams and Reese about this process and what it includes! 

Definitions and parameters  

How is a multi-employer worksite defined? According to the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH), such a site is described as follows:  

A worksite at which two or more entities are performing tasks that will contribute to the completion of a common project. The entities may or may not be related contractually. The contractual relationship may or may not be in writing. On multi-employer worksites, both in construction and industry, more than one employer may be citable for the same condition. 

However, per OSHA’s Multi-Employer Citation Policy, CPL 2-0.124, the agency does not use this or any other specific definition of a multi-employer worksite. Instead, the agency focuses on employer responsibility and liability based on the following parameters:  

On multi-employer worksites (in all industry sectors), more than one employer may be citable for a hazardous condition that violates an OSHA standard. A two-step process must be followed in determining whether more than one employer is to be cited.