OSHA is finalizing its rule to “clarify” key elements of the 2017 general-industry exposure standards for beryllium including a new definition of “work areas” that won support from unions as a way to ease compliance with the standards and thus bolster worker protections, even as litigation over the underlying policy continues.
November 15, 2026
Labor unions say the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) rule allowing swine slaughterhouses to raise line-speed limits regardless of worker safety impacts must be vacated, citing a recent Supreme Court decision they say shows that the agency’s refusal to consider safety data in the rulemaking is too fundamental a flaw to fix on remand.
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Amazon.com employees say a federal district court can hear their suit seeking COVID-19 employee safeguards at a New York warehouse despite OSHA’s general authority over workplace safety, arguing that the agency’s “minimal steps” to address the pandemic give courts more room to act.
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Amazon.com is asking a federal district court to reject a suit over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as an infringement on OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction” over workplace safety issues, arguing that allowing lawsuits to enforce state-level coronavirus policies would create “an inconsistent patchwork” of contradictory judicial orders.
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House Democrats’ fiscal year 2021 funding bill for the Department of Labor would boost OSHA’s budget by $12 million from current levels, rejecting President Donald Trump’s requested cuts while maintaining a training grant program that the administration is seeking to end despite OSHA touting the grants as “success stories.”
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is voicing support for another COVID-19 stimulus measure in response to the nationwide rise in infections, teeing up a battle over employer liability waivers that he says will be a GOP requirement in any pandemic bill but which Democrats and labor groups have opposed just as strongly.
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OSHA’s newly updated Unified Agenda of pending rulemaking actions adds only a few new items to its docket while delaying a host of previously planned proposals and final rules to summer or later, sparking fresh criticism from safety advocates who say the agency has slowed its regulatory work to a crawl.
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The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is fighting labor unions’ argument that an Inspector General critique of USDA worker safety data undermines its contested rule allowing some slaughterhouses to increase line speeds, countering that the “preliminary” data has “no bearing on the validity of the Final Rule.”
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OSHA is warning offshore fish-processing facilities to be prepared to quarantine workers who develop COVID-19 infections and to make plans for their safe transport back to shore, in the agency’s latest sector-specific virus guidance that highlights the challenges facing industries that depend on self-contained facilities.
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The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking remand from a federal district court to reconsider its rule allowing higher line speeds at some swine slaughterhouses after a judge faulted its consideration of worker safety risks, but labor groups challenging the policy oppose the reconsideration and say it would be a sham.
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