The Labor Department and key House Republicans are battling over whether OSHA's investigation of ergonomics complaints at the Hyatt Hotels chain violates agency policy by wading into what the lawmakers view as a labor dispute, according to sources and letters obtained by Inside OSHA Online.
OSHA Rejects Senator's Call For Two-Year Delay In New Fall Protection Policy, But Offers Flexibility
OSHA has turned down a request from a Democratic senator for a two-year delay in rolling out the agency's tougher fall protection policy in residential construction, instead opting to give good-faith employers some extra time to comply and the possibility of reduced penalties, according to sources and documents obtained by Inside OSHA Online. The agency's new fall protection policy had generated interest from Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) as well as home builders from Nebraska, who met recently with OSHA chief David Michaels, Sen. Mike Johanns (R), and others to air their concerns.
House Democrats are pressing a bill that would seek to prevent the “misclassification” of employees as self-employed or contract workers, as one piece of a much larger set of recommendations to the joint congressional panel tackling deficit reduction. Sources say the legislative effort mirrors a DOL-wide initiative that could lead to OSHA enforcement in some cases where workers classified as contractors are not afforded safety and health protections.
OSHA says new guidelines developed by an organization of state health officials on providing referrals on possible job site hazards to federal OSHA will be useful in identifying hazards to “underserved” workers, and says it provided input as the guidelines were crafted. The group drafted the guidelines following meetings OSHA held last year with state and local regulators to discuss ways to leverage each others' worker safety efforts.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) concluded that a temporary employment agency worker was, for OSHA enforcement purposes, an employee of the company that operated a multi-employer site, in a case that continues testing the legal issues surrounding how broadly OSHA can define the term “employee.” But the commission turned down the Labor secretary's argument that employees of an on-site contractor were also the cited company's employees.
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has signed legislation requiring that health care facilities maintain safe patient handling programs to protect health care workers from muculoskeletal disorders (MSD), in what organized labor calls a key victory and possibly a further impetus for federal action. Hospitals resisted the move at first, but worked with lawmakers to craft a bill that ultimately excluded some documentation requirements that unions had sought, according to a source.
OSHA chief David Michaels told GOP lawmakers the agency will provide the data they are seeking on how OSHA has approached its rulemaking effort to address crystalline silica exposures, but only when the proposed rule comes out. At the same time OSHA has shown no inclination that it will slow up the regulatory process by issuing an advance notice of the proposal prior to moving forward with a proposed rule, as House Republicans have sought along with their call for a range of information about the regulatory effort.
An industry group is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite its draft risk assessment for acrylonitrile (AN), a key ingredient in plastic, arguing that the current document is biased, fails to take into account several relevant studies and follows a “theme of quantitative ultraconservatism that is not scientifically justified.” The comments come as OSHA -- which has an existing permissible exposure limit for acrylonitrile -- looks at updating numerous PELs.
Injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2), OSHA's proposed new silica standard, and the agency's recently rolled-out change in stance to tighten requirements for fall protection in residential construction are three key issues that House Republicans are targeting in an effort to clamp down on OSHA's policy and regulatory agendas. As GOP members pressed agency officials on those issues at a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday (Oct. 5), the agency defended its efforts, and organized labor and a public interest group said OSHA should be more aggressive in tightening its regulatory grip.
House Republicans are stepping up their efforts to slow down OSHA's regulatory and policy agendas by attaching riders to their version of the fiscal 2012 Labor Department spending bill that would block the agency from: issuing an injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule; adding a column for musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) to OSHA recordkeeping logs; and implementing a new, stricter residential fall protection policy.
California worker advocates are pushing a bill likely to be debated in next year's legislative session that would change the Cal/OSHA process of setting permissible exposure limits (PELs) by requiring that the limit be based on the most protective health based-exposure level, but the state's business community strongly opposes the measure. The bill was introduced earlier this year but will be considered as a two-year bill, and is not likely to come up for consideration until next year. The effort comes as federal OSHA also wrestles with the issue of outdated federal PELs.
State public health epidemiologists have developed a framework for state health officials to start referring potential workplace safety and health hazards to federal OSHA, delving into numerous legal and protocol issues that states might have to navigate if forming such agreements with the agency. The document, obtained by Inside OSHA Online, envisions either memoranda of understanding (MOU) between states and the feds, or less formal arrangements -- and points out the pros and cons of either approach.
Safety engineers have come out against OSHA's proposal to beef up its recordkeeping and reporting rules, citing resource burdens on both the agency and employers. The American Society of Safety Engineers raised the concerns shortly before the agency decided to reopen the comment period on the proposal in response to other stakeholders' concerns about the data used in a separate part of the rulemaking that deals with industry exemptions.
Advocates for tighter workplace protections against crystalline silica exposure are pressuring the White House to advance OSHA's rulemaking effort, with a key public interest group saying it has a petition with more than 5,500 signatures on the issue that it will soon file with the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile a safety organization, which has not taken a position on the planned rule, is urging OMB to let the public process move forward, and industry sources continue to argue that OSHA has yet to justify the proposal.
The Environmental Protection Agency has released for public comment and external peer review an updated version of its year-old draft assessment of the common contaminant 1,4-dioxane, including in the document new studies used to derive first-time risk limits for inhaling the chemical. The move comes as OSHA struggles with how to update years-old permissible exposure limits for a long list of chemicals.
Congressional investigators met recently with a public interest group that closely follows occupational safety and health issues to gather input on OSHA's effectiveness, with the group suggesting legislative and administrative reforms are necessary to fix what it views as a broken regulatory system, a source with the group told Inside OSHA Online. The group pointed investigators to three specific regulatory hurdles: 1. The decades-old Supreme Court benzene decision that requires OSHA show its standards address a “significant” risk; 2.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a new bill to reform the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) governing how OSHA and other agencies craft their rules, which activists fear would create a cost-benefit analysis “super-mandate” that overrides statutes limiting economic considerations in developing regulations.
Several key industry groups with a stake in OSHA's silica controls recently met privately with White House officials to raise concerns with the agency's plan to tighten its silica exposure standard, with the industrial sand industry suggesting OSHA instead step up monitoring of workers under the current permissible exposure limit, which the group said is frequently not met. But organized labor decried the industry push and continues to criticize what it views as the Office of Management and Budget's lengthy review of OSHA's draft proposal.
OSHA's effort to enforce whistleblower provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) could test in the Ninth Circuit the agency's stance on back pay and reinstatement of complainants pending final court order, legal issues on which the Labor Department has already suffered losses in three other circuits, a legal source told Inside OSHA Online.
OSHA's recent high-profile activity to enforce anti-retaliation provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) are being praised by whistleblower advocates who say the agency is showing anecdotal signs of ramped-up enforcement as it takes administrative steps to restructure its whistleblower program. Further, they say OSHA appears to be welcoming the advice of outside experts on ways to better train whistleblower investigators.