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Restaurant owners face a fast-approaching regulatory deadline, yet many may not be aware of it or know what they need to do to comply.
By Dec. 1, 2013, all U.S. employers whose workers may come in contact with chemicals must provide training to help them understand new hazard symbols and warnings that are beginning to appear on product labels and safety data sheets. Those symbols and warnings will become standard over the next several years.
The new hazard communications are a modification to the current Hazard Communications Standard (HCS), administered by U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Referred to as GHS, which stands for the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals, the modification is based on an effort to standardize hazard communication worldwide initiated by the United Nations in 1992 and developed over the ensuing decades.
Now being implemented by the U.S. and many other nations, GHS aims to "harmonize" the ways in which chemical hazards are classified and communicated globally. Improved worker safety is the primary goal.
The first of two deadlines: Staff training
Restaurant owners face two regulatory deadlines during GHS implementation. The first is Dec. 1, 2013; the second is June 1, 2016. Both will be enforced by OSHA's...