제  목 : OSHA Cooks Up New Guidelines for Restaurants
  일  자 : 1997년 06월
  제공처 : Safety ＆ health

     Convenience stores and restaurants are alike in that they're both
   open late, they handle a lot of cash and they are often vulnerable to
   crime.

     Despite their similarities, however, the restaurant industry objected
   to being grouped with convenience stores in new OSHA guidelines. The
   restaurant industry claims that there are enough differences between the
   two industries to warrant separate guidelines. Industry members complained
   that OSHA used rnformation only on convenience-store crime in developing
   the guidelines. In response, the agency has agreed not to include eating
   and drinking establishments in the guidelines for convenience stores and
   devise new guidelines for the restaurant industry.

     At press time,OSHA was revising the language in its guidelines for con-
   venience stores and was planning to send it out to stakeholders for
   comments, says Pat Biles, the agency's workplace-violence program coord-
   inator. The restaurant industry guidelines are still in the discussion
   stage, she says.

     Despite the additional work, devising separate guidelines "is a good
   decision if it gets us workable guidelines," says Ray Donnelly, 0SHA's
   director of general industry compliance.

     Representatives for restaurants and convenience stores have objected
   to any sort of guidelines, even though the agency says they are strictly
   voluntary standards, not enforceable regulations. However, there is wide-
   spread concern that OSHA will use the guidelines as de-frcto regulations
   during enforcement actions.

      Also, says Donnelly, "Restaurants and convenience stores have not been
   extensively regulated by OSHA. They're not used to us, and they don't
   know what we're going to do."

      Representatives from the fastfood industry say that they understand
   the rationale behind the latest guidelines, but they are concerned about
   the liability that the guidelines may present. "OSHA's goal is laudable,"
   says Terrie Dort, head of the National Associatron of Chain Restaurants
   and the National Food Service Security Council. "But the agency does not
   have a sense for what might work in different circumstances, different
   neighborhoods, different establishments."

      Her industry, she says, objects to having a "laundry list" in the guide-
   lines of preventive measures they can take to combat workplace violence
   ---because there's no evidence that some of them work, and also  because
   they expose businesses to liability problems. "No matter what a company
   does, the guidelines will becorne the standard that the plaintiffs lawyer
   holds up and uses against them," Dort says.

      Another problem, Dort says, is that despite extensive precautions,
   it's often impossible to prevent random acts of violence. Even after
   receiving good training and keeping the back door locked, resraurant
   employees are still at risk perhaps more so tharn convenience-srore workers,
   who might be protected by a glass partition.

     "Chain restaurants are not of the the mind that we are responsible for
   all the ills of society, "she has. "OSHA's putting the whole monkey
   on our back."