Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee are proposing a $68 million fiscal year 2023 funding increase for OSHA in hopes of restarting long-stalled talks with the GOP on spending legislation, just as the chamber’s leaders are embracing a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on a reconciliation bill that appears to exclude long-sought boosts to OSH Act penalties.
November 15, 2026
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced it is directly investigating workplace safety concerns and “related issues” at multiple Amazon warehouses, in the wake of a worker death at one of the company’s New Jersey facilities -- a step one Democratic lawmaker says is “exceptionally rare” and justifies a strict OSHA response as well.
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A Texas construction firm is suing over OSHA’s citation for a 2016 accident where a worker was seriously injured when a crane touched a live power line during disassembly, after the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) twice rejected the employer’s defenses -- including that the crane safety standard should not apply.
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OSHA chief Doug Parker told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a sworn July 25 declaration that his agency is “on track” to complete a long-term COVID-19 standard for healthcare workers by September or October, despite Labor Secretary Marty Walsh’s recent comments that the rule could take as long as five months.
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The Biden administration is highlighting early inspection figures from OSHA’s first-time National Emphasis Program (NEP) on heat danger as part of a broader push to showcase its climate policies amid a worldwide heat wave and the failure of Senate negotiations over clean-energy measures in a reconciliation spending bill.
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The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has released a handbook of workplace safety “best practices” for companies that employ temporary workers (TWs) hired through staffing firms, building on joint recommendations it issued with OSHA in 2014 and calling on employers to go “beyond compliance” in order to protect TWs.
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The coalition of unions suing OSHA to revive its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the healthcare sector say the agency’s self-imposed timeline for a permanent rule appears at risk of slipping by as much as two months, citing comments by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh during a Senate appropriations hearing.
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Employers are lining up against OSHA’s proposed withdrawal of federal approval for Arizona to operate an OSH Act state plan, saying the move has no reasonable basis and would undercut a “highly effective” program, while national unions and safety professionals are hailing the proposal as a necessary step for worker protections.
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The Labor Department (DOL) is outlining a process for workers to seek formal “statements of interest” asking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not to enforce immigration laws against workers dealing with alleged OSHA standard violations or other “labor disputes” who fear retaliatory deportations or other penalties for whistleblowing.
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The Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) is raising a long list of defenses against OSHA’s proposal to withdraw its state plan authority under the OSH Act, saying the federal agency’s claim of a “history of shortcomings” by ICA is merely a “pretext” for a revocation and that it has never established a legal standard to deem a state program inadequate.
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