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Don't forget to train temporary workers

Accreditation Connection, April 19, 2004

A hospital that uses temporary workers from a staffing agency must still offer safety-related training to those people, according to a January ruling from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Here's some background: In 1997, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Milwaukee for violating the bloodborne pathogens, hazard communication, and record-keeping standards. The citations, which eventually resulted in $17,680 in penalties, stemmed from the hospital not offering certain training to temporary housekeepers provided by two employment companies.

Froedtert appealed the citations to the commission, which is an independent federal agency that hears arguments against OSHA actions.

Froedtert Memorial agreed that it did not comply with the standards in question. But it argued that it didn't have to comply because the temporary housekeepers were not its employees. The commission ruled that the hospital was indeed an employer of the temps, however, in part because it provided supervision to these workers.

"The law is well settled that the housekeepers' status as temp-agency employees is not determinative of whether the temps were also Froedtert employees," the commission wrote. "Under traditional principles of agency law, two unrelated employers may each have an employment relationship with a particular employee acting in the service of both, or working as a loaned servant of one and as the borrowed servant of the other."

Another point of contention was that the hospital didn't provide the temps with the opportunity to receive the hepatitis B vaccine as required. Hospital representatives said they believed the staffing agency provided this protection, although no one ever sought written confirmation that the agency took this step. Through this oversight, the hospital in effect chose not to delegate its training responsibilities to the staffing agencies, the commission wrote.

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