Animal welfare advocates challenging the Trump administration’s line-speed waivers for pork slaughterhouses say the Agriculture Department (USDA) is moving slowly, if at all, on a potential reconsideration of the policy, and they are renewing their push for a court ruling that would declare the waivers unlawful.
November 15, 2026
AFL-CIO health and safety director Rebecca Reindel says the Senate’s imminent confirmation of Labor Secretary nominee Marty Walsh could prompt OSHA to finish work on its emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, after the agency missed President Joe Biden’s March 15 deadline to issue a rule.
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OSHA is seeking nominees to fill six seats on the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH), just a few weeks after the Trump administration named four new members to the committee during its final days and further advancing the revival of the panel that had been dormant since 2019.
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Employers’ attorneys see OSHA’s newly announced national emphasis program (NEP) for COVID-19 as a major shift in the agency’s approach to the pandemic that could drive an immediate rise in enforcement, even as OSHA continues to weigh issuing an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the virus.
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Employers are urging OSHA to use its impending emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 to standardize the nationwide approach to pandemic protections, by formally overriding state-level ETS rules and executive orders that have created a patchwork of workplace safety requirements against the coronavirus.
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OSHA is launching a new enforcement “emphasis” program to tackle COVID-19 workplace exposures, bolstered with $100 million in funding for the agency through the newly enacted stimulus law that will in part assist the enforcement effort, amid suggestions that OSHA might delay an emergency safety rule for the virus.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has overturned a 2018 OSHA citation to a construction firm for falling hazards at a subcontractor’s worksite, holding that while the agency proved the company was a controlling employer at the site there was scant evidence that it was aware of the subcontractor’s violation.
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The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has updated its guidance for employers to protect mine workers from COVID-19 infections but continues to weigh whether to issue a binding safety standard for the pandemic at mines, even as OSHA is widely expected to unveil such a rule within days.
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OSHA identified more violations of fall-protection standards than of any other safety regulations in its fiscal year 2020 enforcement actions, according to preliminary figures from deputy agency enforcement chief Patrick Kapust, with the respiratory protection standard being the only pandemic-related policy in the “top 10” for citations.
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Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York are asking a federal appeals court to hold that even a binding OSHA COVID-19 standard would not preempt their claims that the retail giant violated state pandemic safety mandates, despite a district judge’s ruling that such protections are part of OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction.”
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