Daily News

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is asking stakeholders to weigh in on best practices to alleviate workplace-related stress, mental health conditions and substance abuse for healthcare workers, as the agency gears up to launch a national awareness campaign to reduce stigma around the issue.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun a formal review of OSHA’s electronic recordkeeping and reporting rule that will revive Obama-era requirements for employers to submit injury and illness records to the agency, after they were largely rolled back in 2019 by the Trump administration.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is in the final stages of developing a first-of-its-kind, statutorily mandated national registry to monitor cancer exposures among firefighters, but says several hurdles remain in creating a process to protect the data security of program participants.

The country’s largest nurses’ union is calling on OSHA to step up enforcement of its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare, arguing that a recent survey of hospital conditions shows widespread noncompliance with key provisions of the ETS, including on testing and protective gear, in its first month of implementation.

OSHA is rejecting an Inspector General (OIG) report that found silica standard inspections dropped by 50 percent when its long-standing enforcement emphasis program lapsed and recommended policy reforms to avoid such gaps, arguing that it is not “appropriate” for the watchdog office to weigh in on the agency’s enforcement priorities.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a bill that employer attorneys say will “vastly” expand California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) enforcement authority and hike monetary penalty amounts for regulatory violations, as well as giving the agency new power to seek permanent injunctions against employer operations.

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) is setting a demanding test for OSHA to enforce portions of its safety standard for telecommunications work, holding that a cable company exercised “reasonable diligence” when it assumed an experienced worker would follow training on the standard without close supervision.

Katherine Lemos, chair and sole member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), told a House committee Sept. 29 that she plans to introduce new approaches for its incident investigations and reports that would take less time to complete, in order to address a years-long slowdown in CSB’s work.

Correction Appended

Two workplace legal experts say OSHA’s forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine rule appears likely to pass “constitutional muster” based on current legal precedent but warn that if litigation over the issue reaches the high court its outcome could be less certain if the conservative majority decides to reexamine those prior decisions.

OSHA has released four new regulatory interpretation letters that clarify requirements for companies' safety data sheets (SDS) under the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS), including new guidance on labeling variant products and lithium-ion batteries even as the agency is weighing a broader overhaul of the standard itself.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is floating a draft permanent COVID-19 worker-safety standard that aims to provide more compliance flexibility and streamlined requirements compared with its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), in part by incorporating some core elements of the policy into its existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP).

President Joe Biden has named his long-awaited nominee to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) after the panel has operated at a 1-1 partisan split for months, just as a Senate committee advanced his nominations of three candidates for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).

Retail industry groups are asking OSHA to address a variety of “vital concerns” in its COVID-19 vaccine rule, warning that President Joe Biden’s plan raises questions on how the agency will consider issues like employee classifications, exemptions and testing costs, and are further seeking a 90-day phase-in period to ease those challenges.

Industry attorneys say they expect OSHA’s forthcoming rule on COVID-19 vaccination to offer employers the “option” of mandating vaccines for workers rather than offering weekly tests as an alternative, among other potential details they say are likely based on statements from President Joe Biden and agency officials.

OSHA is strengthening enforcement and outreach “to better protect heat-exposed workers” as part of a larger “multi-prong” initiative from the Biden administration to combat heat-related illness, after worker-safety and environmental groups pressed the White House for action following this summer’s record-setting heat waves.

OSHA’s New England Region I is stepping up enforcement targeting “tree trimming and removal, landscaping and site preparation” work, saying the 31 reported worker deaths in those sectors since 2016 are “alarming and unacceptable” to the point where they warrant a formal regional emphasis program (REP).

OSHA’s director of maritime and agriculture safety says the Biden administration is requiring all new OSHA guidance products such as workplace posters and safety notices to go through review by agency leadership, adding a new layer of scrutiny even as officials are aiming to release a slew of such guides by the end of 2021.

Legal scrutiny of OSHA’s pending vaccine mandate is ramping up, as Arizona’s attorney general has filed what appears to be the first suit to block the rule while unions that challenged the agency’s earlier COVID-19 standard for the healthcare sector are suspending that suit to consider how the agency’s new policy will affect it.

Provisions in the House’s $3.5 trillion spending bill would raise the statutory penalties for OSH Act violations by a factor of 10, up to a minimum of $50,000 and maximum of $700,000 -- setting the stage for Democrats to pass a key element of their a long-running push for broader reforms to the law.

OSHA’s forthcoming COVID-19 vaccination rule is getting a cautious reception from labor and work-safety groups, with several saying “the devil is in the details” and urging officials to carefully balance concerns for worker safety and privacy while maintaining calls for a broader workplace health rule.