A seafood processor asked whether the requirement to provide a baseline audiogram within six months of an employee's first exposure at or above the action level effectively exempts temporary and seasonal workers who are gone before six months. OSHA noted the noise standard contains "no specific exemption from audiometric testing for temporary or seasonal workers," but pointed to the March 8, 1983 preamble to the hearing conservation amendment, which said the time periods in 1910.95(g)(5)(i) and (ii) were included to exclude seasonal and temporary workers from the audiometric testing program. The rationale was practical: these workers often work for several employers in a season, making testing administratively difficult, and they will not be employed long enough for an annual audiogram to be compared against the baseline.
OSHA's bottom line: "If a temporary or seasonal employee's audiometric testing is due after the employee's term of employment has ended, the employer is not required to establish a baseline audiogram." But OSHA immediately added a caveat that temporary workers are entitled to the same protections under the OSH Act as all other covered employees.
Two requirements keep this from becoming a loophole. First, 1910.95(i)(2)(ii)(A) specifically requires employers to ensure hearing protectors are used by any employee, including temporary and seasonal employees, who has been exposed at or above the action level and has not yet had a baseline audiogram. Second, if a temporary or seasonal employee works for the same employer during two or more separate periods within a 12-month period and is exposed at or above the action level during all of them, the employer must make audiograms available to that worker (OSHA also referenced its February 8, 2005 letter to Ms. Cindy Bloyer on rehire policy).
As a best practice, OSHA stressed that the baseline audiogram is extremely important as the reference against which future audiograms are compared, and it encourages employers to make baselines available as soon as possible after exposure at or above the action level, even though the standard allows six months (or longer where mobile testing services are used, per 1910.95(g)(5)(ii)).