maintenance people

I am wondering how many non electrician/engineer people are being brought into the arcflash arena. I am a maintenance person for a School District ( 17 buildings) which seem to be trying to stay in compliance. We are now beginning a survey. The problem is that we have no electrician on staff and have for years routinely done electrical work ( ballasts , switches, outlets, motors, etc.) I have been recently fitted for a mandatory PPE uniform. While I work around electrical equipment, I definitely should not (and do not any more) work on it, as I have no formal electrical or arcflash training. Of course that work now goes out to the younger- get-r-done employees who will be wearing all the proper PPE while performing the illegal work that impresses the boss. I know this is wrong on several levels. Doesn't NFPA70e address qualified personnel to be affected? Would OSHA be interested in addressing this scenerio under the general clause? This is a great forum. Thanks for your feedback.

Not to cause trouble or give you an excuse not to do what your boss says, but:

1) Your State Dept of Labor sets the requirements for electrical work. In some States only licensed electricians are permitted to perform electrical work. Other States grant exemptions for direct employees. Contractors for hire almost always have to be licensed. This would be the first step. If you are required to be licensed, and you're not, then doing the work is against the law and your boss should know that. The DOL agents love to give out fines to those doing work without license. But if its a public school, probably would be kept on the downlow.

Funny thing about the 70E is that the word "Electrician" is no where in the standard/ The standard is for all employees working on or near electrical systems and regardless of your job or background you need to be "Qualified" per the 70E definition to work on electrical systems.

my understanding its based on the work the person is peforming and if you are calling them a "Qualified Person" That would apply to anyone working on or near energized parts > 50 Volts (electricians, maintenance, HVAC, instrumentation, utility operators, Engineers, etc.) At our company we have looped in all of the above to the Arc Flash program.

NFPA and OSHA are not worrying about whether a person is an electrician since there is no way to get 50 states to all agree on what an electrician should or should not be qualified to do. To put it into a little perspective, an electrician is licensed to do electrical work. This work includes installing residential houses, commercial building and such. Does that mean that he is qualified to work on my 2000 HP high voltage variable speed drive, definately not. On the other hand, I can take the tech that is qualified to work on the drive and he is NOT qualified to install electrical systems. In most states, it is legal to work on industrial installations without an electricians license as long as the work involves like and kind repairs and not new installations. Does that mean these people are qualified to do the work? Only if they meet the requirements of OSHA Subpart S.

This means that if your employer has made sure the requirements of 330-335 then you are "Qualified" as far as OSHA and NPFA are concerned.

Bear in mind that Subpart S has nothing to do with meeting the requirements of 1920.269 which includes Transmission, Distribution and Generation systems. I have seen several posts in the forum from people who are without a doubt in the 1910.269 catagory and have another whole set of regulations to comply with (an example is the Loop Fed 1000 KVA transformers on their facility that belong to the owner and not the utility company).

As for the school system, many states exempt government agencies including school systems from meeting state electrical laws but they are still required to meet OSHA rules for protecting employees who are working around electricial.

If you don't feel qualified under OSHA rules to perform the work, you need to notify your employer. They will need to decide whether to give you additional training to make you qualified or remove you from those duties. Since you have been doing these duties for years and appear to now be refusing to do them because you are required to wear PPE, I would suggest that you are about to step in it with both feet and I would recommend that you don't do any electrical work since you have a totally wrong attitude about employee safety.

We have this going on in our facility now. Since we are in one of those states that requiress a license to do electrical work things are changing from "the way they were always done." We have maintenance folks that have done the same work for years as Maintman but with the increased awareness of arc flash also comes the increased awareness of all electrical work.

I am reading Maintman's comments not as he is not willing to do the work but the employer is not allowing him to do it. We have many employees like this, qualified workers with years of work experience, but are not allowed to do the work based on state law.

There is still a place for the unlicensed maintenance worker in our facilities but their interaction with electrical work is greatly reduced from the way it was.

I saw that problem comming years ago in MI. All the UAW plant electricians, some with a license, many without. Now these guys are on the street with experience and without the actual qualifications needed for employment as electricians elsewhere.

update

After passing on my increased awareness of state regulations to my supervisor, I was retaliated against & the illegal work continued with the other employees. I alerted his supervisor & on up to the school board. I never heard back from any of them. The School District was eventually fined by OSHA & DOLI. My position of 23 years became unbearable & I am no longer actively employed there - after reaching an agreement with them. I am not allowed to say whether I am being paid or not. So I wont. I only had two years until retirement which is still secure --so I wouldn't recommend this battle to anyone who can't afford it. I could provide a link to the TV news story if anyone is interested. This forum is what 'sparked' my desire to increase my job knowledge.
Thanks to all.

It's a shame that this happened to you. I am in Michigan, working in a UAW shop. Our corporation now has a "master of signage" who signs the time for apprentices coinciding with their hours working as an electrical apprentice, which allows them to eventually write their tests to become licensed electricians. That dude had better be getting paid well!

Here is the link.

http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1450228.shtml

Sorry how it turned out but you did the right thing. I have a lot of respect for that.