OSHA divides its workplace safety rules into four main groups of standards: general industry (29 CFR Part 1910), construction (29 CFR Part 1926), maritime (29 CFR Parts 1915, 1917, and 1918), and agriculture (29 CFR Part 1928). Each group lives in its own section of the Code of Federal Regulations and targets the hazards most common in that type of work. Which group applies to you depends on what your employees actually do, not what your company is called.
General Industry: 29 CFR Part 1910
Part 1910 is the broadest group and covers most workplaces that don’t fall under construction, maritime, or agriculture. Manufacturing plants, warehouses, hospitals, retail stores, and office buildings all sit here. If no industry-specific standard exists for a particular workplace, Part 1910 is the default.1Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 29 CFR Part 1910 – Purpose and Scope
The topics run wide: safe walking and working surfaces, exit routes, fire prevention, electrical safety, ventilation, machine guarding, and personal protective equipment. Two rules inside this group get cited more than most and are worth knowing by name.
The hazard communication standard, often called HazCom, requires every employer who uses hazardous chemicals to keep a written program, maintain accessible Safety Data Sheets for every chemical on site, and train employees on what they’re handling. Containers must carry labels identifying the product, its hazards, and precautionary measures.2eCFR. 29 CFR 1910.1200 – Hazard Communication
The lockout/tagout standard (29 CFR 1910.147) prevents injuries from the unexpected startup of machinery during maintenance. Employers must build an energy control program with written procedures, employee training, and periodic inspections. Before anyone services a machine, the equipment has to be shut down, isolated from its energy source, and physically locked or tagged in the off position, with a verification step before work begins.3Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1910.147 – The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout)
Construction: 29 CFR Part 1926
Construction has its own regulatory framework because the worksite itself changes daily. Structures go up, scaffolding moves, trenches open and close. Part 1926 covers everything from excavation shoring to crane operation, and it concentrates hardest on the hazards that kill the most construction workers.4eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1926 – Safety and Health Regulations for Construction
OSHA identifies four leading causes of construction fatalities, known as the Focus Four: falls, struck-by incidents, caught-in or caught-between hazards, and electrocution.5Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Construction Focus Four – Outreach Training Packet Fall protection alone generates more violations than any other OSHA standard across all industries. Under Subpart M, employers must provide fall protection whenever a worker is exposed to a drop of six feet or more, which can mean guardrails, safety nets, or personal fall arrest systems depending on the task.6eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1926 Subpart M – Fall Protection
Scaffolding, ladder safety, and eye and face protection also land on OSHA’s most-cited list year after year. Construction standards dominate the top violations because the hazards are relentless. A guardrail goes up on Monday and gets removed Wednesday for a concrete pour. Compliance is a daily discipline, not a one-time checklist.
Maritime: 29 CFR Parts 1915, 1917, and 1918
Maritime work is split across three parts, each covering a distinct setting:
- Part 1915 covers shipyard employment, including ship repair, shipbuilding, and ship breaking.7eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1915 – Occupational Safety and Health Standards for Shipyard Employment
- Part 1917 covers marine terminal operations where cargo is loaded and unloaded at docks.
- Part 1918 covers longshoring, meaning the movement of cargo aboard vessels.
Water introduces hazards that don’t exist in other industries. Confined spaces inside a ship’s hull can trap toxic gases. Workers on floating vessels risk falling overboard. Fire aboard a vessel in dry dock behaves differently than fire in a building with normal exits. The maritime standards address all of this with rules specific to the environment.
Personal flotation devices illustrate how specific the rules get. Every PFD worn by a maritime worker must be Coast Guard-approved and inspected for dry rot, chemical damage, or other defects before each use. Floating vessels 200 feet or longer must have at least three ring life buoys positioned forward, aft, and at the gangway, each with at least 90 feet of line attached; vessels under 200 feet need at least one ring buoy at the gangway.8Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1915.158 – Lifesaving Equipment A portable ladder long enough to help a worker climb out of the water must be stationed near every floating vessel where work is performed.
Agriculture: 29 CFR Part 1928
Agricultural operations follow Part 1928, the smallest of the four standard groups. It addresses some genuinely dangerous equipment. Tractors and power take-off shafts cause a disproportionate share of farm fatalities, and the regulations target both directly.
Tractors used in agricultural work must have roll-over protective structures and seatbelts. Employers must inform every tractor operator about safe operating practices when they’re first assigned to the equipment and at least once a year after that. Power take-off shafts and other exposed moving parts on field equipment must be guarded with shields. Employees must be trained on safe operation and servicing of covered equipment, including keeping guards in place while machines run, clearing all personnel before engaging power, and locking out electrical systems before maintenance.9eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1928 – Occupational Safety and Health Standards for Agriculture
The field sanitation standard applies to agricultural employers with eleven or more workers doing hand-labor operations on any given day. Employers must provide potable drinking water, toilet facilities, and handwashing stations at no cost. Water must be cool enough to drink, available in sufficient quantity, and dispensed in single-use cups or fountains. At least one toilet and one handwashing facility must be provided for every twenty workers, located within a quarter-mile walk of where hand laborers are working.10Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1928.110 – Field Sanitation
A long-standing Congressional appropriations rider prevents OSHA from using federal funds to conduct inspections at farming operations that employed ten or fewer workers at all times during the preceding twelve months. That doesn’t erase the legal obligation to maintain safe conditions, but it does mean small farms are unlikely to face an enforcement visit. The exemption disappears the moment a farm exceeds ten employees, even temporarily.
How to Tell Which Group Applies
The correct standard group depends on what your employees actually do, not what your company is called. A business that manufactures windows follows general industry standards. The crew that installs those windows at a job site follows construction standards. When a task could fall under either category, the question is usually whether the work is routine maintenance (general industry) or construction, alteration, or repair of a structure (construction).
OSHA uses North American Industry Classification System codes to categorize establishments for recordkeeping and inspection targeting.11Occupational Safety and Health Administration. North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Your NAICS code is a starting point, but it doesn’t override the actual nature of the work. An employer classified under a manufacturing NAICS code still must follow construction standards for any construction activity happening on the premises.
When No Standard in Any Group Fits
No set of regulations can anticipate every hazard. When a workplace danger exists but no specific OSHA standard covers it, the General Duty Clause applies. Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act requires every employer to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 654 – Duties of Employers and Employees It functions as a catch-all when no standard from any of the four groups addresses a particular risk.13Federal Register. Occupational Safety and Health Standards – Interpretation of the General Duty Clause: Limitation for Inherently Risky Professional Activities
OSHA has used the General Duty Clause to cite construction employers for bloodborne pathogen hazards, for instance, because the specific bloodborne pathogen standard only applies to general industry.14Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Construction Industry General Duty Clause, and the Bloodborne Pathogens Standard Even if no regulation addresses a specific hazard in your workplace, you’re still legally responsible for fixing it if a reasonable employer in your industry would recognize the danger.
Multi-Employer Worksites
Sites where multiple companies work alongside each other create a complication: a hazard created by one employer can injure another employer’s workers, and more than one of the four standard groups may be in play at the same address. OSHA’s multi-employer citation policy allows the agency to cite any of four types of employers on a shared worksite:15Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Multi-Employer Citation Policy
- The creating employer, meaning the company that caused the hazardous condition.
- The exposing employer, meaning the company whose own employees face the hazard.
- The correcting employer, meaning the company responsible for fixing or maintaining safety equipment on site.
- The controlling employer, meaning the company with general supervisory authority over the worksite, usually the general contractor.
A general contractor who notices a subcontractor’s missing guardrails and does nothing about it can be cited as the controlling employer even though its own workers were never at risk. If you have supervisory authority on a multi-employer site, OSHA expects you to exercise it.
State Plans May Alter the Federal Version
Not every state operates under federal OSHA directly. Twenty-two states and territories run their own OSHA-approved safety programs that cover both private-sector and government workers, including California, Michigan, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington. Another seven jurisdictions operate state plans that cover only state and local government employees, leaving private-sector enforcement to federal OSHA.16Occupational Safety and Health Administration. State Plans
State plans must be at least as protective as the federal standards, and some go further. California’s Cal/OSHA imposes additional requirements in several areas, including heat illness prevention. If you operate in a state-plan state, the version of the four standard groups you have to follow is the state’s, which may include stricter rules or lower trigger thresholds than the federal baseline.17Occupational Safety and Health Administration. State Plan – Frequently Asked Questions