Employer representatives are objecting to differences between California OSHA’s requirements for companies to record and report COVID-19 cases among employees and federal OSHA requirements, and urging the state to align its rules more closely with OSHA -- but California appears to be broadly rejecting the request.
November 15, 2026
Legal firms are warning California employers that they could be targeted with tort litigation by workers who claim they contracted COVID-19 as a result of a company’s failure to properly carry out Cal/OSHA safety rules for the virus -- a potentially much greater financial risk for firms than an increase in worker compensation claims.
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Industry groups are clashing with labor and health organizations over how Cal/OSHA should revise its proposed permanent rules for protecting outdoor workers from wildfire smoke, with both sides citing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in their calls to either relax or tighten certain provisions of the regulations.
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Attorneys representing employers are warning California businesses to pay special attention to complying with Cal/OSHA rules implicated in the COVID-19 emergency, including those covering injury and illness reporting, “aerosol transmissible disease,” and general reporting, pointing out that the state’s rules often go beyond federal requirements.
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A chemical industry group has told California regulators that while it has found one “possible” safer alternative to methylene chloride in paint and varnish stripping products, it is not clear whether the alternative is safe enough to win state approval, highlighting the difficulty regulators face as they seek to ban such products due in part to worker risks.
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Bolstering prospects for a bill banning the manufacture and use of asbestos, a group of Democratic attorneys general (AGs) is supporting the bill while agreeing with GOP lawmakers and industry groups that the legislation may have to give more time for producers of chlorine used for water treatment to transition to non-asbestos methods.
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California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) has made a series of amendments easing her controversial bill that would lock into state law Obama-era worker safety and other rules, but the changes are failing to fully address industry opposition, setting up the potential for more talks and further changes.
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Cal/OSHA is scheduled later this month to approve first-time emergency rules to protect outdoor workers from wildfire smoke, which could serve as a model for other states that lack such measures and are also experiencing increasing numbers and intensity of fires due in part to climate change.
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Over the objections of a broad industry coalition, a California Senate panel has advanced a controversial bill that would require Cal/OSHA to strengthen its standards should it find that the Trump administration has weakened any equivalent federal OSHA standards below levels that were in place at the end of the Obama presidency.
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