Don’t Overlook Hazmat Employee Training Requirements

The requirement at 49 CFR 172.702(a) is clear—hazmat employers are responsible for ensuring that each hazmat employee receives training in compliance with the requirements listed at 49 CFR 172.704.

The issue of responsibility for training comes up frequently because third parties often enter the picture.

Example: A hazmat employer contracts with an outside firm to provide training to employees. Or a hazmat employer retains subcontracted employees. Would the training company or the subcontractor be liable if the training was found to be inadequate? In both cases the answer is no.

While hazmat regulations offer flexibility on who can provide the training, the responsibility for how the training complies with the HMR training requirements rests entirely with the hazmat employer.

---

Whatever safety meeting you need, chances are you’ll find it prewritten and ready to use in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library on CD. Try it at no cost or risk. Here’s how.

---

Training Pointers

Here are some important points about hazmat employee training:

• Training is defined as "a systematic program." Through consistent approach, testing, and documentation, it ensures that a hazmat employee has knowledge of hazardous materials and the HMR, and can perform assigned hazmat functions properly. The regs are flexible here. Training and testing may be accomplished in a variety of ways, including performance, written, oral, or a combination of the three.

• The definition of a "hazmat employee" includes each and every person who performs any function subject to the federal HMR. Therefore, for example, an office secretary who types the required hazmat description on a shipping paper, at the direction of another, is a hazmat employee who must be trained.

• There is a limited exception to the requirement that all employees must be trained. Specifically, a new hazmat employee or an employee who changes job functions may perform hazmat functions before completing training provided the performance is under the "direct supervision of a properly trained and knowledgeable hazmat employee" [emphasis added].

---

We challenge you to NOT find a safety meeting you need, already prewritten, in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library. Take up our challenge at no cost or risk. Get the details.

---

• Untrained new or relocated hazmat employees must complete training within 90 days after employment or change in job function. In other words, after the 90-day grace period, a retroactive violation may be triggered if the training has not been completed.

• Training must comprise both general awareness or familiarization with what hazmats are and "function-specific" training. Sending the employee who enters hazmat information for shipping papers for a training course that focuses exclusively on the proper packaging of chemicals would not be function-specific training and may be grounds for a violation of Section 172.704(a)(2).

• Hazmat employers must certify that hazmat employees have been both trained and tested. Employees need not "pass" the test. However, an employee may be certified only if that employee can successfully perform the hazmat duties to which he or she is assigned.

 For more information about HMR training requirements, click here.