Contractors, Custodians and Visitors in the Lab

A course for Chemical Hygiene Officers on everyone who enters the lab without being lab staff

Custodians, maintenance staff, contractors, vendors, visitors, students, interns, volunteers, firefighters and inspectors all enter your labs. Each group meets your chemicals without your staff’s training, and each is covered by a different rule, or by none. This course teaches you to plan for every one of them.

It is written for Chemical Hygiene Officers in education and in industry. Every lesson teaches one step, then shows it twice, once in a school or district and once in a company or lab.

Seven modules, one plan

• Who the Rules Cover: the Laboratory Standard’s definition of employee, OSHA’s 1990 reading that counts custodians and not guests, and the duty of care owed to students.
• Custodians and Maintenance Staff: what they must be told, the rooms and containers they leave alone, and after-hours spills.
• Contractors: your duties as host employer under Hazard Communication, permits and lockout, and shutting a lab down before the work starts.
• Visitors, Vendors and Guests: the laboratory supervisor’s duty for visitors, protective equipment for each one, minors, and keeping unauthorized people out.
• Students, Interns and Volunteers: in a school, at a university and in a company internship, including temporary workers.
• Emergency Services and Inspectors: firefighters and paramedics at a chemical incident, planning with your fire department, and inspectors in the lab.
• Keeping It Working: keys and access cards, records, and the yearly review.

Each module ends with a Task, a set of “What you learned” flip cards and a short quiz. Each Task fills in one fillable form, and the final project assembles the seven forms into your plan for people who are not lab staff.