The brouhaha over health and safety rules for telecommuters is a wake up call for employers who weren't aware state and federal workplace regulations can be applied to some home offices.

While some home office work is exempt from federal oversight, hazardous manufacturing activities in homes nationwide and all work-at-home activities in California remain regulated by health and safety rules, officials say. States are permitted to enforce rules tougher than OSHA's.

"The important thing that it did was bring some attention to this area and many employers may not have realized that they had some responsibility here," Dean Fryer, spokesman for California Department of Industrial Relations' Division of Occupational Safety and Health (CalOSHA).

The U.S. Department of Labor doused a fire storm of criticism when it withdrew a federal regulations interpretation letter that said employers were responsible for making sure employees who worked at home had a workplace that was safe, healthy and otherwise in compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations.

The surprise ruling could have had implications not only to the nearly 20 million employees who routinely work from home, but also occasional home workers, including independent brokers' real estate agents who complete paperwork at home.

State and federal labor officials are now trying to balance 65-year-old laws enacted during the rise of New Deal industrialization with the needs of today's technology-driven work force much more likely to work at home.

U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Alexis Herman formally withdrew the OSHA interpretation two days after it was drafted to answer a query from Houston, TX-based CSC Credit Services, a consumer credit services company concerned over what OSHA regulations might apply to members of its sales force if they worked at home.

The federal labor department made the withdrawal official and clarified OSHA's position when OSHA overseer, assistant labor secretary Charles N. Jeffress testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions' Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee last week.

"We believe that the OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety) Act does not apply to an employee's house or furnishings. OSHA will not hold employers liable for work activities in employees' home offices,'' Jeffress testified.

Jeffress said the exemption applied only to the white-collar home work place, not those used for hazardous manufacturing, including electronic components, lead fishing lures or fireworks assembly. OSHA has cited those work-at-home activities in recent years.

Federal government investigations last year revealed that at least a dozen Silicon Valley electronics manufacturers in Silicon Valley assigned piecework assembly to employees working at home. The employees commonly used lead solder and acid flux without proper ventilation.

In California, where tougher regulations reign, even white collar work places in the home, including those of telecommuting high-tech workers and real estate industry workers, apparently are not exempt from state health and safety rules.

"We would get into any place of employment if an employee called to complain that the work site was unsafe or unhealthful or if the employer called to report an employee suffered injuries in the work-at-home environment," Fryer said.

That's not likely. No employee or employer has ever filed such a report since California's regulations were drafted in 1973, Fryer added.

OSHA likewise will approach hazardous home workplaces only after a complaint or referral, according to Jeffress.

"When we are addressing your work-at-home situation, the employer obviously has a responsibility for health and safety and can assist the employee in way to make the home office safe. We don't tell them how they must do that, we only enforce the law that says they must do it," Fryer said.

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Published: February 7, 2000

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