Employees have the right to work in a safe and healthy environment. A complaint can be generated by employees or an employee representative by requesting an inspection if they believe unsafe or unhealthful conditions exist in their workplace.
If you believe your workplace may be unsafe, you may anonymously file a complaint by:
- Calling the Occupational Health and Safety Bureau at 505-476-8700
- Sending an email to Complaints.OSHA@state.nm.us
- Submitting your complaint through the online complaint form here.
You must provide the entity’s name, location and description of the problem. The telephone number of the company and the name of the individual or manager in charge is also useful.
The New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Act gives employees the right to file complaints about workplace safety and health hazards and the right to anonymity. You do not have to provide personal information like name, address, and phone number; however, this information is useful to the Occupational Health and Safety Bureau to be able to follow up with the employee. Personal information is not revealed to the employer. Employees cannot be subjected to any type of discrimination for filing complaints with OSHA. Use this link to find out more information about discrimination.
Discriminating Against Employees Who Exercise Their Safety and Health Rights is Illegal
Workers have the right to complain to the Occupational Health and Safety Bureau or their employer if they believe they are working in an unsafe environment and can request an OSHA inspection. Section 50-9-25 of the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Act authorizes OSHA to investigate employee complaints of employer discrimination against complainants.
Some examples of discrimination are firing, demotion, transfer, lay-off, losing opportunity for overtime or promotion, exclusion from normal overtime work, assignment to an undesirable shift, denial of benefits such as sick leave or vacation time, blacklisting by other employees, taking away company housing, damaging credit at banks or credit unions and reducing pay or hours.
Refusing to work because of potentially unsafe workplace conditions is generally not an employee right under the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Act. Your union contract or other state law may give you this right, but the Occupational Health and Safety Bureau cannot enforce it. Refusing to work may result in disciplinary action by your employer.
Employees have the right to refuse to do a job if they believe in good faith that they may be exposed to an imminent danger. “Good faith” means that even if an imminent danger is not found to exist, the worker had reasonable grounds to believe it did exist.
If you believe your employer has treated you differently because you exercised your safety and health rights, contact us and/or fill our the Discrimination Complaint Form here. Discrimination complaints must be filed within 30 days of the discriminatory action.