Nevada Labor Laws

Everyone is entitled to a safe and protected work environment. Under Nevada labor laws, employers have a moral obligation and duty to ensure that a workplace’s health and safety meet the legal requirements. If your employer fails to take the necessary steps to do so and you get injured, you may have a workers’ compensation claim.

Nevada Labor Laws on Workplace Safety

Nevada has adopted the federal safety and health standards, commonly known as Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). These regulations place a general duty of care on employers of a certain size to provide a working environment that is void of all hazards that can be reasonably removed. OSHA’s intention is to help employers and employees avoid preventable injuries in the workplace.

Private and public sector employers with more than 10 employees are required to develop a written safety plan, and employers with 25 or more employees at each worksite must establish safety committees. Most employers must maintain accurate and comprehensive accident reporting records in the event of employee illness or injuries related to their occupation. Additionally, all construction site workers and supervisors are required to complete a 10- or 30-hour construction training course. Nevada also has state-specific requirements that are stricter than federal laws for handling explosives, machine guarding, process safety for ammonium perchlorate, and record-keeping.

Workers’ Rights to Refuse Dangerous Work

If you believe your workplace is unsafe or presents a specific hazard to employees, you have the right to:

• File a confidential complaint with OSHA if you observe or suspect a safety or health problem at your workplace.
• The right to make a confidential request for an inspection of your workplace by OSHA for safety and health standard violations.
• Refuse work that violates legal safety or health standards. If you are considering exercising this right, consult a Las Vegas personal injury attorney to be sure you will be legally protected.

Although OSHA rules do not provide for a private cause of action (lawsuit), they provide an essential baseline of safety that protects employees from working in substandard conditions. Violations are taken seriously and subject employers to hefty fines.

Safety Violations and Workers’ Compensation

When employers do not follow OSHA regulations, the risks for accidents increase considerably, which is why safety violations and workers’ compensation claims often go hand-in-hand. Unfortunately, companies routinely take shortcuts and choose to put their profits ahead of workplace safety. They hire inexperienced and untrained workers and ignore safety precautions that take away from their bottom line. On the other hand, unsafe work practices are not always immediately apparent until an accident occurs.

As a result, workplace safety violations are to blame for a significant number of fatal and non-fatal construction accident injuries every year. Nevada does require most employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance in case a worker is injured on the job. An employee who is injured or contracts an illness while at work is entitled to workers’ comp benefits to cover medical bills and a portion of their lost wages while they recover.

Employees are not required to prove an OSHA violation to file a workers’ comp claim. However, evidence of a safety violation can be used to bring a case against an employer in certain situations. For example, if the employee is retaliated against for reporting the violation or wrongfully terminated.

Get Help if You Have Suffered an Injury Due to a Labor Law Violation

Our Las Vegas workers’ compensation lawyer has decades of experience and knows how to protect the rights of injured workers. Call Harris & Harris Injury Lawyers today at (702) 384-1414 to schedule your free consultation.