Membership depends on how many workers you have:

• 20 or fewer workers: The committee must have at least two members.
• More than 20 workers: The committee must have at least four members. 

Members should represent the major activities of your business.

A safety committee must:

• Establish procedures for doing quarterly safety and health inspections to identify any workplace hazards that could injure workers. Those doing inspections must be trained in hazard identification.

• Meet at least monthly – except when you do quarterly inspections.

• Review all quarterly safety and health inspection reports and recommend how to eliminate identified hazards. 

• Work with management to establish procedures for investigating all safety incidents, accidents, work-related illnesses, and fatalities. Investigators must be trained in the principles of accident investigation. All work-related lost-time injuries must be investigated.

• Evaluate all investigation reports and recommend ways to prevent incidents from happening again.

• Set guidelines for training safety committee members.

• Evaluate your workplace’s safety and health programs.

Your safety committee must ensure that workers:

• Are aware of the committee and know who the members are. 

• Know when the committee meets.

• Know how the committee shares information with management and other workers.

• Know they have the right to have their safety and health concerns heard by the committee.

• Know how and where to report safety and health concerns, incidents, and accidents.

Management must:

• Pay committee members their regular rate of pay for attending meetings, trainings, inspections, and other safety committee functions.

• Make sure committee members have access to the safety committee rule (437-004-0251) and all other Oregon OSHA rules that apply to their work.

• Respond to safety committee recommendations within a reasonable time.

The safety committee must have an equal number of management-selected and worker-elected (or volunteer) members. If everyone on the committee agrees, there can be more worker-elected members.

• Management can select a supervisor or a worker to represent them.

• Workers can volunteer or elect any co-worker to represent them.

• Members should serve a minimum of one year, when possible.

• A majority of members must agree on a chairperson.

Members need to be trained: 

• On the committee’s purpose and operation.
• How to identify hazards.
• How to investigate accidents.

See Additional Resources below for hazard recognition training resources.

If you have workers at more than one geographic location, you can have a central safety committee if the locations are close enough to ensure that workers: 

• Are aware of the committee and know who the members are.

• Know when the committee meets.

• Know how the committee shares information with management and other workers.

• Know they have the right to have their safety and health concerns heard by the committee.

• Know how and where to report safety and health concerns, incidents, and accidents.

And: 

• The central committee represents the safety and health concerns of all workers at all locations.

Keep a record of each safety committee meeting that includes:

• The meeting date
• Names of those attending
• All committee reports, recommendations, and evaluations
• The date management agrees to respond to recommendations 

Keep these records for at least three years and make them available to workers who request them.

Safety meetings must:

• Include all available workers.
• Include at least one management representative.
• Be held on company time with workers paid at their regular rate of pay.
• Occur at least monthly. 
• Seasonal workers can attend safety meetings. 

Your safety meetings must ensure that workers:

• Know about the meetings and know when and where they are held.
• Know how meeting information is shared between management and other workers.
• Know they have a right to have their safety and health concerns heard at the meetings.
• Know how and where to report safety and health concerns, incidents, and accidents.

Safety meetings must:

• Cover safety and health issues relevant to your workplace.

• Cover reports and recommendations from quarterly workplace safety inspections and injury investigations. (Have a competent person do quarterly safety inspections to identify any workplace hazards that could injure workers. Be sure to investigate all work-related lost-time injuries and illnesses.)

• Give workers an opportunity to ask questions, bring up safety and health concerns, and make suggestions. 

Make sure that information is presented so that all workers can understand it. 

Keep a record of each safety meeting that includes:

• Meeting date
• Names of those attending
• Topics discussed 

If all your workers attend a safety meeting, just record the meeting date and the names of those who attended.

Keep the records for at least three years and make them available to workers who request them.