Republicans on a House appropriations panel used a recent hearing on worker-safety issues in meat and poultry plants to call for an increased focus on vaccinating workers in the sector against COVID-19 as a better strategy than a strict OSHA standard, signaling how conservatives could seek to counter the agency’s imminent rule.
November 15, 2026
Republicans on the House labor panel are urging OSHA to reach out to employers as it crafts a widely expected emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, warning that rules based on outdated science could have an “adverse impact” on workplace infection controls.
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OSHA and public health groups are at odds over whether to pause the appeal of a court challenge to the Trump-era rollback of the agency’s 2016 recordkeeping rule, with the Biden administration vowing to review and possibly reconsider the action but plaintiffs in the suit saying they will not support more than a short-term stay.
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OSHA is floating the first update to its Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) since 2012 -- a move that would more closely align the policy with current international guidelines for chemical labeling in the workplace and could also drive a new effort to incorporate those same requirements into EPA rules.
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Unions, worker safety groups and others are calling on the Biden administration to update public-health guidance on COVID-19 to explicitly acknowledge that the coronavirus spreads through aerosols -- a step they say would immediately lead to stricter workplace infection controls.
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Unions and environmental groups are asking courts to overturn EPA’s findings on whether workers face “unreasonable risks” from a host of chemicals including asbestos and the solvent methylene chloride, even as the agency itself is wrestling with whether to craft new rules for the substances in addition to OSHA standards.
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OSHA is expanding its whistleblower protection program under new statutory authority created in two laws enacted at the end of the Trump administration, including a statute that expanded prohibitions on money laundering and another that created a new anti-retaliation protection for antitrust cases.
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House Democrats are pushing new legislation to reverse the landmark 2012 court ruling that imposed a strict six-month limit on OSHA’s enforcement of recordkeeping and reporting mandates, following release of a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that blames the decision for a dramatic enforcement drop.
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New York is suing Amazon over what it claims is the retail giant’s failure to protect workers from COVID-19 at its facilities in New York City, creating another front in the wide-ranging court battle over whether OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction” over workplace safety preempts states’ enforcement of their pandemic rules.
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OSHA is maintaining its defense of a Trump-era decision not to take enforcement action against a Pennsylvania meat-packing plant over conditions workers say pose an “imminent” threat of COVID-19 infection, even as the Biden administration is vowing to pursue stricter workplace safeguards and enforcement during the pandemic.
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