What Does OSHA 30 Cover? Construction, General Industry, Maritime

The OSHA 30-hour course covers workplace safety topics organized into three industry tracks — construction, general industry, and maritime — each with its own mandatory core, a set of trainer-selected electives, and optional hours the trainer uses to tailor the class to a specific worksite.¹ The mandatory portion is the same for every student in a given track. Everything after that depends on the trainer and the industry.

The program is aimed at supervisors and workers with some safety responsibility: site leads, foremen, safety committee members, project managers.² The emphasis throughout is hazard recognition and prevention rather than memorizing regulatory text.

Construction Track: The 14 Mandatory Hours

The construction track requires at least 14 hours of mandatory content before any elective material begins.³ The required topics are:

Introduction to OSHA (1 hour) — workers’ rights, employer responsibilities, how to file a complaint, and an overview of injury and illness reporting.
Managing Safety and Health (2 hours) — injury and illness prevention programs, accident investigation, site inspections, and running effective safety meetings.
OSHA Focus Four Hazards (6 hours) — the four hazard categories responsible for roughly 65 percent of construction fatalities. Falls get a minimum of 90 minutes. Electrocution, struck-by, and caught-in/between each get at least 30 minutes.
Personal Protective Equipment (2 hours) — selection, use, and limitations of hard hats, eye protection, respirators, gloves, and other gear based on site-specific hazard assessments.
Health Hazards in Construction (2 hours) — silica dust, lead, asbestos, and noise exposure, along with engineering controls and permissible exposure limits.
Stairways and Ladders (1 hour) — setup angles, load ratings, the three-point contact rule, and common mistakes that cause falls.

Inside the Focus Four

Falls dominate construction fatalities, which is why they get the most classroom time. The training covers the fall protection standard that requires guardrails, safety nets, or personal fall arrest systems whenever a worker is six feet or more above a lower level.⁴ Students learn to match the system to the task, since a harness suited to steel erection may be impractical during roofing.

Electrocution training focuses on overhead power lines, damaged cords, and improperly grounded tools. Struck-by modules cover danger zones around heavy equipment, cranes, and hoists, plus protocols for securing loads at height. Caught-in/between training addresses trench cave-ins and unguarded machinery. Trench collapses kill quickly and without warning, and trainers often spend more than the 30-minute minimum here.

General Industry Track: The 12 Mandatory Hours

The general industry track applies to workplaces outside construction, agriculture, and maritime — manufacturing plants, warehouses, hospitals, offices, and similar settings. It requires 12 hours of mandatory content:⁵

Introduction to OSHA (1 hour) — the same rights, responsibilities, and complaint-process content taught in the construction track.
Managing Safety and Health (2 hours) — building and sustaining a safety program, including accident prevention and worksite analysis.
Walking and Working Surfaces, Including Fall Protection (1 hour) — slip, trip, and fall prevention indoors, floor hole covers, aisle maintenance, and load ratings for elevated surfaces.
Exit Routes, Emergency Action Plans, Fire Prevention Plans, and Fire Protection (2 hours) — keeping evacuation paths clear and marked, and maintaining a written fire prevention plan that lists major fire hazards and procedures for handling flammable materials.⁶
Electrical (2 hours) — safe use of extension cords, panel maintenance, arc flash awareness, and the lockout/tagout procedures that isolate hazardous energy before servicing equipment.⁷
Personal Protective Equipment (1 hour) — matching the right gear to the right hazard.
Materials Handling (2 hours) — safe movement and storage of goods, forklift operations, and ergonomic lifting practices.
Hazard Communication (1 hour) — reading safety data sheets, understanding labeling systems, and knowing which chemicals are present in the workplace.

Maritime Track: The 7 Mandatory Hours

The maritime track covers shipyard employment, marine terminals, and longshoring. It requires seven hours of mandatory content before electives:⁸

Introduction to OSHA (1 hour)
Managing Safety and Health (2 hours)
Walking and Working Surfaces, Including Fall Protection (2 hours)
Personal Protective Equipment (2 hours)

If your workplace falls under 29 CFR Parts 1915, 1917, or 1918, this is the correct track. Workers in shipyards and port terminals face hazards involving confined spaces, heavy rigging, and work over or near water that the other tracks do not address.

Electives and Optional Hours

Once the mandatory core is done, the remaining time splits between electives (chosen from an OSHA-defined list) and optional hours (chosen freely by the trainer). This is where the course gets tailored to the actual worksite.

Construction

The construction track requires 12 hours of electives drawn from at least six different topics. The approved list includes scaffolding, excavations, cranes and hoists, confined spaces, steel erection, fire protection, concrete and masonry, ergonomics, and powered industrial vehicles, among others. Four optional hours remain for the trainer to cover anything else relevant to the site or expand on earlier topics.³

General Industry

The general industry track requires 10 hours of electives covering at least five topics from a list that includes machine guarding, hazardous materials, confined spaces, lockout/tagout, bloodborne pathogens, welding, ergonomics, fall protection, and powered industrial vehicles. Eight optional hours fill the balance.⁵

The optional hours are where the training actually reflects your workplace. A trainer running a course for a chemical plant might spend those hours on hazardous materials response, while a trainer at a food processing facility might focus on machine guarding and ammonia refrigeration hazards. If a provider cannot tell you which electives and optional topics they cover, that is a reason to look elsewhere.

What OSHA 30 Does Not Cover

The course is an educational program, not a professional credential. OSHA states that completing it is not a certification and does not satisfy the specific training requirements attached to individual OSHA standards.¹ If a standard requires training on a particular piece of equipment, chemical, or process, the employer must still provide that training separately.

Completing the course also does not authorize you to teach it. Delivering the 10-hour or 30-hour course requires a separate trainer authorization course through an OSHA Training Institute Education Center, plus ongoing maintenance of that authorization. And there is no federal requirement that any worker take the outreach program at all; state laws, municipal rules, and employer policies are what typically make it mandatory in practice.¹

1
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Outreach Training Program (OSHA 10-Hour and 30-Hour Cards)
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Card Hierarchy for Classroom Training
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OTP Construction Procedures 2024
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1926.501 – Duty to Have Fall Protection
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OTP General Industry Procedures 2024
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1910.39 – Fire Prevention Plans
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 1910.147 – The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout)
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Maritime Industry Procedures