Overview:

Historically, law enforcement in Illinois has traditionally NOT had to deal with the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) or Federal OSHA with regard to respirator regulations. However, in today's world things have changed. ILEAS has been at the forefront of the labor issue since distributing nearly 24,000 thousand AVON respirators in 2003 and more recently with the stockpiling of 138,000 N95 masks for biological emergencies. There have been a multitude of opinions, rumors and misinterpretations regarding labor rules for law enforcement - ILEAS has attempted to cut through the misinformation to provide uniform guidance to Illinois law enforcement. ILEAS has worked with IDOL, the Central District U.S. Attorney, vendors, and Federal OSHA to develop a consistent set of guidelines to assist every chief law enforcement manager in making policy, planning, and budgeting decisions with regard employee respirator use.

Labor Regulation Guidline Matrix:

This page will document all the official activity between ILEAS and the various regulatory agencies regarding respirator labor issues for law enforcement. As a result of that effort, ILEAS has developed a matrix of Illinois Law Enforcement Respirator Regulations. We hope that this tool will be a valuable set of guidelines to support your policy and budgetary decision-making. All you have to do is to read down the first column and choose a policy decision with regard to AVON or N95 mask use. Once you find the situation that best fits your issues, then move along that line to the right to see the requirements with regard to Standard Medical Screening, Annual Training, Annual Fit Testing, Policy, Records, Selection of Respirator and Physical Exam. Each cell in the matrix identifies the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard 29 CFR 1910.134, annexes, appendices and other references.

For a printable PDF version with hyperlinks to official regulations, click here.

For agencies that want to be in full compliance, ILEAS has developed two tools to assist. The first is the 3M online medical screening service. The second is a series of twenty 1.5 to 2 hour regional "train-the-trainer" sessions to teach fit testing procedures for the N95 masks.