Occupational safety and health.

Existing law defines "serious injury or illness" and "serious exposure" for purposes of reporting serious occupational injury or illness to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and for purposes of establishing the division's duty to investigate employment accidents and exposures. This bill would recast the definition of "serious injury or illness" by removing the 24-hour minimum time requirement for qualifying hospitalizations, excluding those for medical observation or diagnostic testing, and explicitly including the loss of an eye as a qualifying injury. The bill would delete loss of a body member from the definition of serious injury and would, instead, include amputation. The bill would also eliminate the exclusion of injury or illness caused by certain violations of the Penal Code and would narrow the exclusion of injuries caused by accidents occurring on a public street or highway to include those injuries or illnesses occurring in a construction zone. The bill would recast the definition of "serious exposure" to include exposure of an employee to a hazardous substance in a degree or amount sufficient to create a realistic possibility that death or serious physical harm in the future could result from the actual hazard created by the exposure. Existing law also establishes the standard for what constitutes a serious violation requiring a faster response from the division and further requires the division to keep confidential the name of a person submitting a complaint regarding unsafe or unhealthy working conditions. Existing law establishes that a serious violation exists when the division determines that there is a substantial possibility that death or serious injury could result from the condition alleged in the complaint. This bill would instead establish that a serious violation exists when the division determines that there is a realistic possibility that death or serious injury could result from the actual hazard created by the condition alleged in the complaint.