Daily News

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has issued a new guidance setting out requirements for employers to protect workers from the monkeypox virus (MPV) under the agency’s existing Aerosol Transmissible Diseases (ATD) standard, setting out varying requirements for three different types of employers.

OSHA has postponed its public hearing on potential changes to the process safety management (PSM) standard and extended the deadline for written comments, giving stakeholders more time to weigh in on a range of possible changes that include expanding the rule to cover oil and gas facilities, and updating its list of “highly hazardous” chemicals.

Officials in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration are insisting that California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) pending final COVID-19 standard not require employers to provide “exclusion pay” to employees who cannot work due to infections, even though the chairman and at least two other members of the agency’s standards board support such a revision, according to sources.

“Basically, Gov. Newsom’s office doesn’t want exclusion pay right now, and the legislature is already acting in that area,” says one source close to the issue.

Correction Appended

OSHA has unveiled a new version of its “Severe Violator Enforcement Program” (SVEP) targeting employers that “willfully or repeatedly” violate safety standards or refuse to correct violations, broadening a key part of the program to cover all rules rather than only “high emphasis hazards” in a move employer attorneys say could expand its reach “exponentially.”

Top OSHA officials told advisory panels this week that the agency is poised to advance several long-awaited rules on heat illness, protective gear and more after it completes its permanent COVID-19 safety standard for the healthcare sector, saying the staffing demands of that project have sidelined even major priorities for the Biden administration.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is stepping up attacks on the peer review of EPA’s draft formaldehyde risk assessment, charging that the National Academy of Science (NAS) is unlawfully concealing key information on its review process amid a long-running battle over the ubiquitous chemical’s risks to workers.

Employers’ attorneys and labor groups are offer contrasting legal and other strong objections to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) proposed long-term worker safety standards for COVID-19, setting up an imminent debate for the agency’s standards board on what changes -- if any -- to adopt in a final rule.

The discount retail chain Dollar General is telling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit it will oppose OSHA’s bid to have the court enforce an “informal settlement agreement” the two sides negotiated over a $145,000 citation for allegedly unsafe conditions at an Ohio store.

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is suggesting the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) address a raft of procedural and staffing issues in a future strategic plan as part of its “special review” of the body’s “capabilities,” along with new details on a behind-the-scenes clash that led to the resignation of its former chair.

OSHA has sent for White House review a long-delayed proposed rulemaking that the agency says is designed to “clarify the requirements” for fitting workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) in the construction sector, over three years after it first announced it was working on the changes.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) began review of the PPE proposal on Sept. 7, starting a process that is officially meant to last about 90 days but can take much more or less time depending on the policy.

Federal judges considering a rare suit under the OSH Act provision allowing workers to sue OSHA for failing to take action over an “imminent danger” raised doubts at oral argument on whether they can still provide any relief to the plaintiffs more than two years into the case, among an array of other questions on the results both sides are seeking in the appeal.

The Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is launching a new study of the worker-safety impacts of raising line-speed caps at meat and poultry slaughterhouses, potentially reshaping long-pending suits by unions and others over prior speed waivers that a district judge scrapped for failing to consider safety issues.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has crafted first-time guidance for its 2020 accidental-release reporting rule that it says “clarifies” requirements for facilities to notify the board of releases that cause injury, death or “substantial” property damage, just a month after publishing data from the rule’s first two years of reports.

OSHA is ordering Wells Fargo to pay $22 million in damages to a former senior manager who was terminated from the banking giant in 2019 after “repeatedly” raising concerns over alleged misconduct apparently linked to its account-fraud scandal -- years after an internal investigation found the agency mishandled similar claims.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit is set to hear oral argument next week in a suit brought by workers at a Pennsylvania meat plant challenging the Trump OSHA’s refusal to take enforcement action over what they say was an “imminent danger” of COVID-19 infection at their workplace, in a test of one of the OSH Act’s few private rights of action.

California construction industry representatives are attacking an informal proposal by California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to adopt federal fall-protection safety standards for residential frame construction that the employers argue are less protective than the state’s existing policy, and are seeking a meeting with federal OSHA, Cal/OSHA, labor and other stakeholders.

A top union official is urging EPA to follow OSHA’s approach to assessing workplace risks from toxic chemicals rather than “reinventing the wheel” for the TSCA program, saying a new framework would create unnecessary difficulties for employers and workers alike, while other experts warned that contradictory systems will frustrate data-sharing.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected unions’ bid to reinstate OSHA’s COVID-19 healthcare emergency temporary standard (ETS) and impose a strict deadline for the agency to issue a permanent replacement, holding that the OSH Act imposes no “clear duty” on officials to take either step.

Staff at California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board are facing pressure from worker-safety advocates and members of the panel itself to more fully explore the potential impacts from a proposed long-term COVID-19 safety rule that would eliminate exclusion pay and redefine the definition of “close contact” from the current, temporary policy.

Two Universal Health Services (UHS) subsidiaries are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to reverse an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that they say created a “near-boundless” test for when multiple companies can be considered a joint employer under the OSH Act.