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Occupational Safety and Health Administration (U.S.)

Department of Labor

Flag not known
Voluntary Protection Program

See also:

Voluntary Protection Program

image located by Valentin Poposki, 21 October 2005

The new flag of the Voluntary Protection Programs of the Occupational Safety and Healthy Authority of the U.S. Department of Labor can be seen at www.osha.gov/dcsp/vpp/newflag.html.
Valentin Poposki, 21 October 2005

This appears to be a promotional flag for companies and agencies participating in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration VPP program. OSHA's main mission is to promote programs to insure the safety and health of workers in the workplace.
Phil Nelson, 21 October 2005

OHSA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) was established in 1971. OSHA's mission is to "assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. The agency is also charged with enforcing a variety of whistleblower statutes and regulations". OHSA seems not to have a flag, but rather VPP flags. Since VPP has a new flag, that leads us to think there was indeed an old VPP flag (or several old flags).

Since these VPP flags are Certification flags, there are several award flags and VPP variants as well. So here are most of them www.vppstore.com/flags2.html:

VPP Star flag, or Star Site, or Star Worksite old flag pic 1 (source: sharpalliance.org), old flag pic 2 (source: www.gppackaging.com.
VPP Star flag, or Star Site, or Star Worksite old flag, variant (source: www.fluor.com)
VPP Star flag, or Star Site, or Star Worksite new flag (source: www.y12.doe.gov)
VPP Star flag, or Star Site, or Star Worksite variant flag, which may be a prior version of the current one (source: www.osha.gov)
Volunteer STAR: flag (source: www.clevelandbanner.com/pages/full_story/push?media-image-DX77-OlinFlag-jpg%20&id=17720657&instance=yourphotos - no longer available)
SHARP (Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program): flag (source: www.osha.gov)
Merit Worksite: flag (source: www.inkworldmagazine.com)
Unidentified/Illegible VPP Flag: flag (source: www.doli.virginia.gov)

VPP Certification/Award flags are not exclusively handed to private companies, but also government agencies, as this picture shows, (source: www.nasa.gov) showing a NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) building with a VPP flag by its side.

OHSA also regulates Defensive flagging (a temporary job carried out by a Defensive flagger as a signaling person for caution during public/private works, mainly road works/constructions). There's the definition of basic equipment: "Basic flagger equipment is the STOP/SLOW paddle and the flag" (source: www.osha.gov). The flag is defined (in page 6 of the above PDF document) as "a red square of cloth measuring at least 24 by 24 inches. It is fastened to a staff about 3 feet long" and its uses are defined in page 7. Also advanced warning signs are regulated (page 10) where the flagger has two (sometimes one) orange flag (same dimensions as the above red flag) or even a black flag as depicted on the road sign on the PDF document in page 7.

Sources:
OHSA (official website) www.osha.gov
VPP (official website) www.osha.gov/dcsp/vpp/index.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Administration
Esteban Rivera, 28 November 2015

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