Job Site Safety: The Cal/OSHA Framework

Why This Matters

Safety is one of the five sections of the C-36 trade exam, and CSLB weights it at 17 percent. The questions are usually short scenarios: something is going wrong on a job and you pick the right response. To answer them well you need two things. First, the handful of legal rules that frame every California job site. Second, the habit of choosing the answer that removes the hazard or removes the worker from it, instead of the answer that just works around it.

This lesson covers the framework. The later lessons in this topic go deeper into trenches, hot work, confined spaces, hazardous materials, tools, PPE and emergencies.

Who Is Responsible for What

California's workplace safety law lives in two places: the Labor Code (the statute) and Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations (the Cal/OSHA safety orders).

• The employer must furnish employment and a place of employment that is safe and healthful (Labor Code 6400). The employer must furnish and use safety devices and safeguards and do every other thing reasonably necessary to protect the life, safety and health of employees (Labor Code 6401).
• Every employer and every employee must comply with the safety orders that apply to their own actions and conduct (Labor Code 6407). So the worker is not off the hook either: you follow the rules that apply to what you do.
• On multiemployer sites, Cal/OSHA can cite the employer whose workers were exposed, the employer who created the hazard, the employer who controls the site, and the employer responsible for correcting it (Labor Code 6400(b)). As a plumbing contractor on a general contractor's project, you can be cited for a hazard you created even if only other trades were exposed.