OSHA compliant Archives - Business RadioX ®

What Employers Need to Know About OSHA Complaints

May 15, 2025 by John Ray

Hall Booth Smith Podcast Network

What Employers Need to Know About OSHA Complaints

00:00 /

What Employers Need to Know About OSHA Complaints (Litigators Lounge, Episode 14)

When is a hot office more than just an annoyance? In this lively episode of Litigators Lounge, hosts Jackie Voronov and Shylie Bannon kick back with lychee martinis and dive into a surprisingly misunderstood topic: OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration). This episode provides a comprehensive guide for employers, covering everything from the unexpected ways employees are using OSHA complaints to air grievances (spoiler: it’s not just about hard hats anymore) to what actually happens during an unannounced inspection.

Jackie, who Shylie dubs “the OSHA Maven,” explains the real scope of OSHA’s reach, even in white-collar settings, and outlines practical strategies for employers to stay prepared without panicking. The hosts also discuss broader trends, like the effects of staffing shortages and administrative shake-ups on federal enforcement, and why getting too comfortable could be a costly mistake.

Whether you’ve never encountered an OSHA visit or experienced one three years ago that didn’t fully close (yes, it does happen), this episode provides employers with the wit, wisdom, and direct communication they require.

Cheers to staying both compliant and cool under pressure.

Litigators Lounge is underwritten and presented by Hall Booth Smith. The show is produced by John Ray and the North Fulton affiliate of Business RadioX®.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

00:00 Introduction to Litigators Lounge
00:20 Hosts’ Catch-Up and Banter
01:11 Today’s Topic: OSHA and Workplace Safety
03:43 Deep Dive into OSHA Regulations
08:23 OSHA Inspections and Employer Protocols
17:39 Impact of Administrative Changes on OSHA
27:14 Supreme Court Cases and Legal Implications
29:02 Conclusion and Farewell

Jackie Voronov, Partner, Hall Booth Smith

Jackie Voronov is a Partner in Hall Booth Smith’s office in Paramus, New Jersey, and she represents management in a wide variety of employment matters and litigates employment claims before administrative agencies and state and federal courts. Her clients include major hotels, retailers, shipping companies, assisted living facilities and nursing homes, manufacturers, and national fast-food franchisees.

Jackie’s litigation experience includes the defense of employers in single and multi-plaintiff actions on claims of wrongful discharge, sexual harassment, race, national origin, gender, disability and age discrimination, breach of contract, family medical leave, failure to accommodate, retaliation, wage/hour laws, and related tort claims. Jackie also works with her clients to prepare various employment agreements (including non-compete, confidentiality, independent contractor, and separation agreements). She has extensive experience before various administrative tribunals, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the State Division of Human Rights (SDHR), the Division of Civil Rights (DCR), and other state, federal, and local agencies.

In addition, Jackie frequently conducts management training for employers on a wide variety of employment law topics, such as:

EEO/anti-harassment
employee recruiting and hiring practices
family and medical leave
reasonable accommodations for disabilities and religion
preventing and investigating harassment, discrimination, and whistleblower claims
wage and hour compliance
discipline and termination of employees
privacy in the workplace

Jackie is regularly invited to speak nationally on best practices and other employment-related issues. Before joining Hall Booth Smith, she worked for one of the country’s largest law firms, where she defended employers in a wide range of labor and employment matters, including wage and hour class actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), claims related to the New York State Human Rights Law (NSHRL), the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), and Title VII.

Jackie was selected for inclusion as a New Jersey Rising Star by Super Lawyers® for six consecutive years (2010-2016), which honors the top 2.5% of young lawyers in New Jersey.

Shylie Bannon, Partner, Hall Booth Smith

Shylie Bannon is a Partner in Hall Booth Smith’s Jacksonville, Florida, office. She also serves as Hiring Partner for the region of Florida, where she oversees associate attorney hiring endeavors. Prior to joining Hall Booth Smith, Shylie was a partner in both a multi-state, multi-specialty firm and a boutique practice.

At Hall Booth Smith, Shylie continues to represent physicians, mid-level providers, and health care providers in high-exposure medical negligence claims and in administrative proceedings before the Florida Department of Health. She also represents national retailers in high-exposure premises liability, negligent security, and transportation litigation with our National Trial Counsel team.

In addition to litigating matters involving personal injury and negligence, Shylie also represents management in all aspects of employment-related litigation arising from allegations of sex, disability, race, and pregnancy discrimination; whistleblower actions; and alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act and Fair Labor Standards. She does so in administrative proceedings before both the Florida Commission on Human Relations and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as in all of the state and federal courts in Florida. She also provides employment-related counsel to clients, helping them avoid employment-related litigation through the implementation of best employment, investigation, and risk management practices.

Shylie earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, cum laude, and graduated magna cum laude from Tulane University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History.

Shylie volunteers with the Guardian Ad Litem program and supports child welfare advocacy efforts in Northeast Florida. She is also a Member of the Board for the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Northeast Florida.

About Hall Booth Smith, P.C.

Established in 1989, Hall Booth Smith, P.C. (HBS) is a full-service law firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with regional offices strategically located throughout Georgia and the United States. Experienced across a wide range of legal disciplines, HBS prides itself on providing knowledgeable, proactive, client-specific counsel to individuals, domestic and international corporations, state and federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

HBS possesses the legal knowledge, skill, and experience to meet their clients’ needs wherever they do business. HBS maintains the highest commitment to ethically and professionally serving their clients by providing the highest quality legal representation.

They deliver quality legal services in a variety of service areas. Experience across legal disciplines combined with a focus on the unique business or personal requirements of the client is the hallmark of the firm. Their clients receive the attention, expertise, and cost-effectiveness of a smaller law firm with the full service and strong regional presence typical of a larger one.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Disclaimer

Litigators Lounge is a production brought to you by Hall Booth Smith, PC. This podcast is published for the purposes of providing general information and education on topics that include those related to the law and legal issues, but the contents of the podcast do not constitute legal advice. Listening to this podcast or utilizing the information contained in it in any way does not constitute nor does it create an attorney-client relationship between you and Hall Booth Smith or its lawyers. The contents of this podcast should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a professional attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

COVID-19 and OSHA Compliance

April 30, 2021 by John Ray

Dental Law Radio

COVID-19 and OSHA Compliance

00:00 /

COVID-19 and OSHA Compliance (Dental Law Radio, Episode 2)

On this episode of Dental Law Radio, host Stuart Oberman discusses current issues in OSHA compliance resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks of non-compliance for dental practice owners, and much more. Dental Law Radio is underwritten and presented by Oberman Law Firm and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, it’s time for Dental Law Radio. Dental Law Radio is brought to you by Oberman Law Firm, a leading dental-centric law firm serving dental clients on a local, regional, and national basis. Now, here’s your host, Stuart Oberman.

Stuart Oberman: [00:00:26] And welcome everyone to Dental Law Radio. Today’s topic, COVID-19, OSHA Compliant. So, during this whole period of about a year, what we saw was a massive, massive, massive problems with OSHA. You know, I would say this is not your father’s OSHA. And I’ve thought about this for a while where, you know, years ago we’re worried about bloodborne pathogens and needle sticks and how to dispose of items. All those are important. But what’s happened is, is through this whole process, our doctors have developed and continue to develop staff problems.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:06] So, what happens is, I always tell our doctors, “Disgruntled employees are going three places in the medical field, OSHA, HIPAA, Department of Labor, State and Federal.” So, what happens is that our doctors, historically, botch how to handle OSHA complaints. And a lot of times they are easily handled if you get a grip on it pretty quick. But what happens is, you get the letter, they don’t know where to go, what to do. The office manager doesn’t know what to do because she’s not trained. The staff doesn’t know. Because now, all of a sudden, you’ve got the Hygiene Department, who’s your office manager, who definitely has not been trained on OSHA what to do.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:52] So, I don’t care how big you are, whether you’re one practice, 300,000, or 40 practices, 40 million, you’ve got to have an OSHA system for regulatory matters. So, we want to talk a little bit about today as to what you do, and we’re seeing an uptick of this more so than we’ve ever seen before.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:14] You know, through the COVID period – I know everyone’s trying to move out of the COVID period. But I think we got to look back and say, “Hey, what happened? What didn’t work? What worked?” – on the OSHA side, one of our biggest areas that we saw was our doctors were not compliant. They didn’t know how to deal with it. They didn’t have a system when they were running normal, if you will. And they definitely didn’t have a system during COVID-19, especially when they were shut down.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:41] So, what happens to this whole process of getting an OSHA complaint? What is it? So, you’re going to get a letter from OSHA. OSHA is a massive governmental agency. A bureaucracy that if it’s not handled correctly, you’re going to have some problems to deal with it, and you got to have a system in place. So, depending on how many locations you have, you’re going to get a letter to that location. Now, if it is in relation to a different location and it goes to the wrong location, you got to make sure it gets there.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:17] We have one particular case, our doctor had three or four locations. It took three weeks to get from point A to point B. That can’t happen. That’s a disaster. So, what’s going to happen is, you’re going to get an OSHA letter. It’s going to be how is this going to be reported. And, generally, you have about five days to respond.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:35] So, I’m going to go out on a limb that most of OSHA problems can be very easily corrected with a simple process of responding correctly. What does that mean? That means, one, you’ve got to get the document very quickly in your possession. You’ve got to get a handle on the investigation, and it is an internal investigation. So then, you have to go ahead and get your supporting documents. Which a lot of times when doctors are in a mess, they can’t find the photographs, they can’t find anything.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:05] So then, you got to figure out what’s your corrective action. You’ve got to let OSHA know what is your corrective action. And if you don’t have a corrective action, then they will usually tell you what your corrective action is, which is never ever good. When a governmental agency tells you, one, you’ve got a problem and, two, we’re going to tell you how to fix it, that’s not good. So, we don’t want that to occur.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:27] So, what happens if you fail to respond and you have to respond? My advice is that, a doctor, office manager, no one internally should ever respond to an OSHA complaint. That, honestly, is the responsibility of counsel. You’ve got to be experienced in this how to respond, what to respond to, what they’re looking for, what they’re not looking for. And if it’s not within the counsel’s wheelhouse, now, you’ve got two problems. One, you’re under investigation. Two, counsel botched the investigation.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:03] So, what happens if you fail to respond? If you fail to respond, it’s very simple. The government’s going to come in there and they’re going to start digging. And when you got the government coming in and digging on anything, that’s never good. So, they’re going to want a couple of things right off the bat. They’re going to want to know your injury and illness reports. And most doctors have no idea what that is. They’ve never completed it before. We’re lucky if they have an OSHA manual that’s now 20 years old.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:29] So then, you got to have up to date hazard communication, which is mandated. And then, again, most of our doctors have no idea what that is. It’s been in the manual 20 years ago they bought from an organization, they have no idea what it is. Then, what’s your PPE, personal protective equipment? Where’s that at? Is it up to date? That’s a huge concern. And I think it’s a concern going forward as a whole.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:55] Our doctors did enormous job on illness ratios. The COVID-19 reports that were coming out that the dental practices, for the most part, were in about the 90 percent range of having no problems whatsoever, and that’s a huge credit. And we’re not out of the woods yet. But I don’t want to harp on COVID-19. I want to harp on the process of what needs to be done and what’s been learned.

Stuart Oberman: [00:06:22] So then, they want to know what your bloodborne pathogens procedures are. They want to confirm your entry point. They want to know what tag outs are or lockouts are. So, those are all the things you’re going to have to address. So, what do we need to do? One, you’ve got to make sure that your OSHA manual is up to date. If it’s not up to date, you need to get it up to date. And I don’t mean, you know, five years. I mean within, like, 12 months from your last publication.

Stuart Oberman: [00:06:59] Be careful what you do if you buy it from an organization, that they don’t just give you a manual and say, “Here. Open it and you’re good to go.” They have to be custom-made. Be careful what you have, because a lot of the online publications are simply statutory codes, which have no relevance whatsoever as to how to handle things day-to-day. So, it’s got to be curtailed. Get an OSHA manual. Your employees got to be trained. They got to be trained. And you’ve got to have an internal process on how to handle the complaints. It’s not if, but it’s when you’re going to get a complaint. And a process is how do I handle it? What do I do? Who do I go to? How quick do we need to get it resolved?

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:38] Because as these fires continue to stay open, the flames get hotter. And the more they dig, the more problems you’re going to have. And the key is to keep the government out of your practices as quickly as possible and out of your life as possible.

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:53] So, those are a couple of things. You know, those are a couple of things we looked at that we’re seeing a lot of things on. And if any takeaways from this, it’s have a process. Understand what the process is, figure it out. It’s not complex. Take a few minutes, train, procedures, internal matters. Those of all have got to be done correctly, succinctly, and in great detail. So, again, a couple of things, 10,000 foot view on what we need to do on OSHA.

Stuart Oberman: [00:08:26] We’re going to be talking maybe one or two other things on OSHA that I’ve been talking about for a while, that we’ve been seeing an enormous rise on for the last couple of months. So, again, thank you for joining us today at dentallawradio.com. And if you want to contact us, please feel free to do so. Our main number is 770-554-1400. Or send me an email, stuart, S-T-U-A-R-T,@obermanlaw.com. And keep joining us and we’re going to try to provide as much relevant content going forward as is possible. Have a fantastic day and thanks again for joining us.

About Dental Law Radio

Hosted by Stuart Oberman, a nationally recognized authority in dental law, Dental Law Radio covers legal, business, and other operating issues and topics of vital concern to dentists and dental practice owners. The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

Stuart Oberman, Oberman Law Firm

Stuart Oberman is the founder and President of Oberman Law Firm. Mr. Oberman graduated from Urbana University and received his law degree from John Marshall Law School. Mr. Oberman has been practicing law for over 25 years, and before going into private practice, Mr. Oberman was in-house counsel for a Fortune 500 Company. Mr. Oberman is widely regarded as the go-to attorney in the area of Dental Law, which includes DSO formation, corporate business structures, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance, advertising regulations, HIPAA, Compliance, and employment law regulations that affect dental practices.

In addition, Mr. Oberman’s expertise in the health care industry includes advising clients in the complex regulatory landscape as it relates to telehealth and telemedicine, including compliance of corporate structures, third-party reimbursement, contract negotiations, technology, health care fraud and abuse law (Anti-Kickback Statute and the State Law), professional liability risk management, federal and state regulations.

As the long-term care industry evolves, Mr. Oberman has the knowledge and experience to guide clients in the long-term care sector with respect to corporate and regulatory matters, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). In addition, Mr. Oberman’s practice also focuses on health care facility acquisitions and other changes of ownership, as well as related licensure and Medicare/Medicaid certification matters, CCRC registrations, long-term care/skilled nursing facility management, operating agreements, assisted living licensure matters, and health care joint ventures.

In addition to his expertise in the health care industry, Mr. Oberman has a nationwide practice that focuses on all facets of contractual disputes, including corporate governance, fiduciary duty, trade secrets, unfair competition, covenants not to compete, trademark and copyright infringement, fraud, and deceptive trade practices, and other business-related matters. Mr. Oberman also represents clients throughout the United States in a wide range of practice areas, including mergers & acquisitions, partnership agreements, commercial real estate, entity formation, employment law, commercial leasing, intellectual property, and HIPAA/OSHA compliance.

Mr. Oberman is a national lecturer and has published articles in the U.S. and Canada.

Oberman Law Firm

Oberman Law Firm has a long history of civic service, noted national, regional, and local clients, and stands among the Southeast’s eminent and fast-growing full-service law firms. Oberman Law Firm’s areas of practice include Business Planning, Commercial & Technology Transactions, Corporate, Employment & Labor, Estate Planning, Health Care, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Privacy & Data Security, and Real Estate.

By meeting their client’s goals and becoming a trusted partner and advocate for our clients, their attorneys are recognized as legal go-getters who provide value-added service. Their attorneys understand that in a rapidly changing legal market, clients have new expectations, constantly evolving choices, and operate in an environment of heightened reputational and commercial risk.

Oberman Law Firm’s strength is its ability to solve complex legal problems by collaborating across borders and practice areas.

Connect with Oberman Law Firm:

Company website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Monica Caras with Club Z! and Okelo Bristol with Southeast Commercial Services

April 21, 2016 by Mike

Gwinnett Business Radio

Monica Caras with Club Z! and Okelo Bristol with Southeast Commercial Services

00:00 / 00:33:00

Mike Sammond, Okelo Bristol, Monica Caras, Steven Julian

Moncia Caras/Club Z! In-Home Tutoring Service

For 20 years, Club Z! has had the privilege of providing high quality in-home tutoring and test prep services to nearly 300,000 students. Club Z! is an academic solutions provider offering a customized learning program for each and every student. They have learning programs to fit any family’s needs and preferences, whether it’s in-home, on school campus, or even at the library in a small group!

Okelo Bristol/Southeast Commercial Services

Southeast Commercial Services has been a family business since their inception, supported by an organization with more than a hundred years of exercise in the application of ceiling and wall cleaning, non-skid floor safety systems, and aggressive, long-term, microbial cleaning. In many cases, they can clean your business ceilings and walls to a “like new” condition in just a few short hours, saving of up to 90% on the cost of replacement. Their floor safety system virtually guarantees that your floors are safe, impossible to slip on, and completely conforming to OSHA standards. Plus, their anti-microbial cleaning system eliminates molds, mildews, and pollutants, and continues to assure perfect sanitary conditions long after the cleaning process has ended.