Daily News

The California legislator who proposed a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all workers and contractors has shelved the bill in the face of widespread employer opposition, but lawmakers are moving ahead with another contentious work-safety bill that would tighten recent California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) rules on wildfire smoke and heat illness.

OSHA is moving forward with a long-promised update to its lead exposure standard, based on what the agency says are “[r]ecent medical findings” showing that current blood lead level (BLL) limits are not stringent enough to avoid health hazards, just months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tightened its standard for high BLLs.

The White House is asking Congress to raise OSHA’s budget by nearly $90 million in fiscal year 2023, with more than half of those funds earmarked for enforcement just as the agency is unveiling a new strategic plan calling for a 25 percent increase in workplace health and safety inspections by the end of the calendar year.

Correction Appended

OSHA is formally proposing to revive Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates for employers’ injury and illness data, arguing that the Trump administration’s rollback of that rule in the name of worker privacy is no longer needed because “recent advancements in technology” will allow it to scrub public disclosures of any identifying details.

Industry and business groups are attacking a bill advancing in the California Legislature that would prohibit an employer from taking any “adverse action” against employees who either leave or refuse to report to a job site if they feel “unsafe” due to a state of emergency, while requiring that workers be allowed to use their mobile phones during such situations.

Federal district and appellate courts are wrestling with next steps in litigation over Trump-era policies lifting line-speed caps on pork slaughterhouses, even after the Biden administration accepted a decision scrapping that program and replaced it with “time-limited trials” for higher speeds that critics say continue to ignore worker safety and other concerns.

EPA has issued guidance aimed at improving indoor air quality in buildings, calling for measures including ventilation and filtration improvements as well as air quality assessments as part of an administration-wide COVID-19 plan that public health experts hope will eventually lead to binding state or federal safety standards.

EPA March 17 released the guidance, dubbed the “Clean Air In Buildings Challenge,” moments after it was announced by the White House.

OSHA is formally seeking public input on its efforts to develop a permanent COVID-19 safety standard for healthcare facilities based on its defunct emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the sector, and is already floating a long list of potential changes that could broaden the rule’s scope or add more compliance flexibility for employers.

The California Chamber of Commerce (CalChamber) is raising several concerns with a newly proposed state bill that would mandate COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment for all public and private sector workers, including that employers will find it harder to hire and retain workers, and could face burdensome litigation over their compliance.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has quickly completed its review of what one source says will be OSHA’s call for public comments to inform a permanent COVID-19 protection rule for healthcare facilities based on its emergency temporary standard (ETS).

According to its website, OMB approved an OSHA “notice” related to the healthcare ETS on March 17 -- a necessary step before any formal action by the agency, including publication in the Federal Register.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is preparing to soon release an updated version of its controversial COVID-19 worker safety emergency temporary standard (ETS), drawing fears from employers’ attorneys that the state will ramp up enforcement of the rule even as the contours of the update remain unclear.

OSHA is reversing its Trump-era arguments that prompted a federal district court to narrow the application of a little-used OSH Act provision allowing workers to sue the agency to force action on an “imminent” workplace danger, after former officials said the precedent could undermine enforcement more broadly.

However, the agency still believes a pending challenge by workers under the provision is moot and should be dismissed.

Major labor unions are warning EPA that while they support its efforts to strengthen consideration of workplace protective gear in chemical risk evaluations, officials “misunderstand” OSHA’s requirements and have failed to fully address harsh interagency criticisms on the subject that were issued in response to a draft Trump-era chemical review.

Chemical industry safety groups are pushing back against advocates’ calls for EPA to expand its Risk Management Plan (RMP) chemical facility safety rule to include the substance ammonium nitrate and to account for climate change impacts, charging that such changes would be statutorily unworkable, redundant and could worsen supply-chain issues.

OSHA is preparing to open a new public comment period and hold at least one hearing to aid its development of a permanent version of the 2021 COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare facilities, after vowing in court filings to complete work on that rule before the end of the year, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Public health experts are praising the White House’s newly updated COVID-19 guidance for its emphasis on ventilation, but are urging OSHA and states to develop broader indoor air quality standards that account for environmental disparities and focus on filtration measures to protect workers against aerosol pollutants as well as viruses.

Lawmakers appear poised to approve a fiscal year 2022 omnibus spending bill that would boost OSHA’s funding by $20 million as part of an overall $1.8 billion for the Labor Department’s (DOL) worker protection agencies -- a $42 million hike from current levels and just $2 million shy of the White House’s request.

OSHA has announced a three-month initiative that will escalate its follow-up inspections of hospitals and other skilled nursing facilities that have prior pandemic-related citations or complaints, as the agency seeks to develop a permanent COVID-19 standard for the sector in the coming months.

A new decision from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) appears aimed at clarifying the limits of its test for determining when separate entities may be considered a “single employer” in OSHA enforcement actions, holding that related companies with common management may be held liable for recurrent offenses.

OSHA is issuing an interim final rule establishing new procedures for how it will investigate complaints of retaliation against whistleblowers who disclose information or assist in investigations of their employers’ allegedly illegal tax-related conduct, the first in a series of planned rulemakings to bolster protections for whistleblowers.