Daily News

OSHA intends to press on with two of its key outreach and education campaigns -- preventing heat illness and promoting fall protection measures -- even though the agency is faced with an increasingly tight budget and difficult decisions about where to allocate funds, agency chief David Michaels said Thursday (May 23).

“We're going to continue to do them,” Michaels told members of the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health at the panel's meeting in Washington, DC. “They're important.”

OSHA is reaching out to agencies across the federal government in an effort to train staffers who are responsible for federal workers' safety and health, rolling out a range of training programs in areas including ergonomics, fall protection, hearing conservation, confined spaces, and distracted driving. The initiative has drawn criticism, however, from business interests who say OSHA's scarce training dollars -- especially under budget sequester -- should be spent on the private sector where the agency has a charge from Congress to help businesses comply with regulations.

House appropriators on Tuesday (May 21) approved top-line spending amounts for each of 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2014 -- including a 22 percent cut to Labor, HHS and Education funding -- while also rejecting a Democratic proposal to replace the across-the-board sequestration cuts. The approval of allocations for fiscal 2014 were met with ire from House and Senate Democrats, who continued to press House GOP appropriators to hold a mark up of the Labor funding bill, which covers OSHA's budget for fiscal 2014.

OSHA has become entangled in a congressional probe of the IRS and what critics describe as the tax agency's “targeting” of conservative groups in its review of requests for tax-exempt status, with one Republican lawmaker questioning why OSHA inspected the business of a tea party organizer in Texas not long after she filed such an application with the IRS. A Labor Department source tells Inside OSHA Online, however, that the Houston-area facility was included under a Local Emphasis Program (LEP) focusing on the company's industry sector.

A key occupational safety group has taken its case directly to President Obama that OSHA should move forward on issuing a proposed injury and illness prevention program rule (I2P2), citing the recent disastrous explosion in West, TX, as demonstrating the need for workplaces to have comprehensive safety and health programs. But one regulatory expert argues that the Texas fertilizer plant already fell under a Homeland Security Department (DHS) regulation that is at least as stringent as an OSHA program rule would have been.

A Washington think tank focused on progressive policies in the vein of “New Democrats” has issued a policy memo backing the creation of an independent commission to review federal regulations in an effort to cut unnecessary red tape and costs to business. The report acknowledges industry concerns about the expanse of regulations -- include those issued by OSHA -- but says rather than the regulatory look-back traditionally mandated by the White House, a more effective system would study agencies' rules through the prism of an outside commission.

Worker safety and health advocates are pressing OSHA to revisit its enforcement guidelines for pursuing cases under the OSH Act general duty clause, citing high numbers of incidents in areas where the agency may not have specific standards but where they say OSHA has an obligation to act. The call for OSHA to look anew at its general-duty enforcement policy comes after AFL-CIO issued its annual report on workplace fatalities, which includes data on injuries in areas where there are no specific OSHA regulations.

Organized labor says a recent report from AFL-CIO on workplace fatalities finds progress by OSHA in some areas -- particularly its beefing up of whistleblower law enforcement -- but serious shortfalls in other areas, perhaps most notably the lack of discernible movement on new safety and health standards.

The report also exposes several areas of deep concern, unions say, including figures showing high numbers of workplace fatalities among minorities.

Labor secretary nominee Thomas Perez has been approved by a Senate committee, but Republicans continue to sharply criticize the president's pick and are signaling a bruising floor debate on confirmation. One GOP senator tells Inside OSHA Online the nomination warrants a “rigorous” examination before moving forward.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved Perez Thursday (May 16) on a party-line 12-10 vote, advancing the nomination to the floor.

A national worker advocacy group has come out with a new report decrying the number of worker fatalities in North Carolina, blaming what it calls “lax enforcement” and “weak fines” by the state OSHA plan. An official with the state plan disagrees with the bulk of the report, however, and notes that even the report points out that North Carolina's worker fatality rate has been on the decrease. The controversy occurs as federal OSHA continues efforts to better monitor the effectiveness of state plans.

State and local officials in Texas have launched a criminal investigation into the disastrous fire and explosion last month at a fertilizer plant in West, TX, that left 15 dead and hundreds injured, along with massive property damage. But it was not clear this week whether OSHA is working with Texas authorities on the blast probe, though OSHA's investigation of process safety management and potentially other issues is ongoing.

NIOSH supporters are urging House appropriators to maintain funding for the research agency at the fiscal year 2012 level, pushing back against an Obama administration proposal to reduce spending on key NIOSH programs. But an industry attorney argues that in many instances the agency is undertaking activities that are not central to its core mission of providing science to support OSHA rulemaking.

Two senior House Democrats are calling on the Obama administration to cooperate with the European Union in creating a new universal standard on workplace safety and worker rights in light of a recent building collapse at a Bangladeshi factory that killed more than 1,000 workers. The move comes as U.S. worker safety advocates decry potential workplace hazards in major retailers' Bangladeshi factory suppliers.

The Obama administration this week exerted pressure on U.S. apparel importers to actively contribute to improving the work safety and labor climate in Bangladesh following the collapse of a garment factory in Dhaka that killed more than 1,000 people.

Officials from the Labor Department, State Department and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative outlined several potential courses of action in a May 8 conference call with U.S. buyers, according to a State press release.

A federal appeals court has invalidated the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) final rule setting out new requirements for workplace notice postings, which a host of Republicans argued could interfere with other existing mandated notices including information about OSHA rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday (May 7) rejected the agency's arguments that it had authority under statute to issue the rule.

A key Senate Democrat with jurisdiction over agency rulemaking activity is calling on the Obama administration to release OSHA's proposed rule controlling silica exposures and move to the next steps in the regulatory effort. Industry representatives have continued to meet with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to argue that OSHA's existing permissible exposure limit (PEL) for silica is sufficiently protective.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is coming under close scrutiny from Senate Democrats who are trying to learn more about what recommendations the agency may have made that could have prevented the deadly fire and explosion last month at a fertilizer plant in West, TX, and how CSB intends to investigate the blast. Recommendations -- perhaps including advice to OSHA -- are likely to arise from issues that CSB identifies as it probes the causes of the explosion.

Worker advocates are concerned about ongoing federal efforts to pressure hospitals and other inpatient care centers to require influenza vaccinations as a condition of employment or status, stoking a longtime debate over whether the vaccine is effective and whether its requirement tramples on worker rights. The latest debate comes as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) effectively pushes such a mandate with hospital payments on the line, through language in a new proposed payment rule for medical facilities.

NIOSH has come out with a host of recommendations for employers in nanomaterial use or manufacturing to control worker exposures to carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibers -- which have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years because of worries over potential health hazards -- including a recommended exposure limit (REL). A worker safety and health advocate calls the document “historic” because of several groundbreaking recommendations -- particularly that employers provide medical surveillance for workers exposed to the nanomaterials.

A recent OSHA memo informing agency employees that furloughs will not occur under budget sequestration was met with relief from the worker advocacy community, which feared a damaging reduction in enforcement resources during the fiscal crunch. Industry, however, says the notion that OSHA's budget could be cut without affecting personnel demonstrates the need for greater scrutiny of how the agency uses its funds.