Does Montana require a safety committee?
Yes, past five employees. Montana's Safety Culture Act tells every employer to establish and administer a safety program, and the Department of Labor and Industry's rules under it require a safety committee of every employer with more than five employees, meeting at least once every four months. There is no state rule on how often a crew meets; private construction is under federal OSHA.
What the Act and the department say
The statute is MCA 39-71-1504, in the workers' compensation title. The committee requirement is in the department's rules, described on its safety committees page.
“Each public or private employer shall establish and administer a safety program” under the department's rules, and “all employers with more than five employees are required to have a safety committee.”
| What the rule requires | |
|---|---|
| Every employer | A safety program, including temporary workers. The department may issue a safety recommendation to an employer that does not comply. |
| More than five employees | A safety committee that is “composed of employee and employer representatives” and holds “regularly scheduled meetings, at least once every four months.” |
| Employee members | “Volunteers or members elected by their peers.” |
| Records | The department recommends that the committee document its activities, act as a fact-finding body and report to the employer. |
Read it yourself: MCA 39-71-1504 and the department on safety committees.
What applies to every crew regardless
Federal OSHA's construction rule does not mandate a meeting by name. It requires you to instruct each employee in recognizing and avoiding unsafe conditions and the regulations that apply to the work (29 CFR 1926.21(b)(2)), and a documented talk is how most contractors show they did. A general contractor, a prequalification platform and an insurer ask for the same thing, and none of them lowers the bar for a state without its own meeting rule. Every state, on one page.
Questions we get asked
We are five people exactly. Committee?
The line is more than five. At five you still owe the safety program the Act requires of every employer, and a committee you are not required to have is still the simplest way to run one.
Three meetings a year is enough?
At least once every four months is the floor the department sets. A crew that meets weekly on the job and a committee that meets three times a year are two different records, and a GC asks for the first.
Do the minutes have to be kept?
The department recommends it rather than requiring it. Keep them anyway: the committee's record is what shows the program the Act requires is real.
Who checks?
The Department of Labor and Industry, through the Safety Culture Act, and your workers' compensation insurer, which the Act also brings into safety consultation.
How Tailboard handles it
A committee with its own minutes
Tailboard keeps the committee: who sits on it, when it met, who chaired, attendance and the items, each meeting sealed with a code. The year's committee meetings print into the prequal packet with everything else.
The written program lives where the crew can open it
The safety program is a document in the account, dated and versioned, that every person on the roster can read on their phone and that the office hands to an inspector or a GC without a search.
The weekly talk is the record
Every closed meeting records the date, the topic and its OSHA reference, who ran it, which crew and who signed, in one sealed record you can print or hand over. That is the training record every state asks to see.
Certifications with their dates
First-aid cards, competent-person letters and the rest, against every name, with what is current and what is about to lapse.
The committee, the written program and the documents are on the Company tier at $89 a month and on Fleet; the weekly meeting record is on every tier from $29. Crew members never need an account and never cost you anything; they tap their name and sign.
This page describes published law and is not legal advice. Whether a rule applies to your operation, and whether you have met it, is between you, the Montana Department of Labor and Industry and your own safety professional.