Connecticut Administrative Code › Title 31 - Labor › 379 - Discrimination against Employees Exercising Rights under the Connecticut Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1973 › Specific Protections › Section 31-379-12 - Exercise of any right afforded by the Act

Current through July 10, 2024
(a) In addition
				to protecting employees who file complaints, institute proceedings, or testify
				in proceedings under or related to the Act, section 379 also protects employees
				from discrimination occurring because of the exercise "of any right afforded by
				this Act." Certain rights are explicitly provided in the Act; for example,
				there is a right to participate as a party in enforcement proceedings (section
				31-377
				). Certain other rights exist by necessary implication. For example, employees
				may request information from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration;
				such requests would constitute the exercise of a right afforded by the Act.
				Likewise, employees interviewed by agents of the Commissioner in the course of
				inspections or investigations could not subsequently be discriminated against
				because of their cooperation.
(b)
(1) On the other hand, review of the Act and
				examination of the legislative history discloses that, as a general matter,
				there is no right afforded by the Act which would entitle employees to walk off
				the job because of potential unsafe conditions at the workplace. Hazardous
				conditions which may be violative of the Act will ordinarily be corrected by
				the employer, once brought to his attention. If corrections are not
				accomplished, or if there is dispute about the existence of a hazard, the
				employee will normally have opportunity to request inspection of the workplace
				pursuant to section
				31-374(f)
				of the Act, or to seek the assistance of other public agencies which have
				responsibility in the field of safety and health. Under such circumstances,
				therefore, an employer would not ordinarily be in violation of section 379 by
				taking action to discipline an employee for refusing to perform normal job
				activities because of alleged safety or health hazards.
(2) However, occasions might arise when an
				employee is confronted with a choice between not performing assigned tasks or
				subjecting himself to serious injury or death arising from a hazardous
				condition at the workplace. If the employee, with no reasonable alternative,
				refuses in good faith to expose himself to the dangerous condition, he would be
				protected against subsequent discrimination. The condition causing the
				employee's apprehension of death or injury must be of such a nature that a
				reasonable person, under the circumstances then confronting the employee, would
				conclude that there is a real danger of death or serious injury and that there
				is insufficient time, due to the urgency of the situation, to eliminate the
				danger through resort to regular statutory enforcement channels. In addition,
				in such circumstances, the employee, where possible, must also have sought from
				his employer, and been unable to obtain, a correction of the dangerous
				condition.