Daily News

President Joe Biden is poised to nominate California Labor Secretary Julie Su as Deputy Secretary of Labor, deepening the administration’s ties to the Golden State just as OSHA is weighing whether to base its expected COVID-19 workplace safety standard on California’s policy for the virus.

Labor unions and worker safety groups are welcoming President-elect Joe Biden’s first appointees to OSHA as a sign that the agency will move quickly on the new administration’s priority agenda for pandemic response, enforcement and a host of other issues, even before Biden names a permanent OSHA head.

President Joe Biden is ordering OSHA to act by March 15 on a potential emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 that could include a mask mandate for workplaces, confirming expectations he would seek an imminent rule as part of a sweeping pandemic plan that also aims to bolster the agency’s enforcement and guidance.

Biden on Jan. 21 directed OSHA to “consider whether any emergency temporary standards on COVID-19, including with respect to masks in the workplace, are necessary, and if such standards are determined to be necessary, issue them by March 15, 2021.”

Correction Appended

President Joe Biden is poised to step up OSHA’s enforcement program, with employers bracing for heavier penalties and additional inspections including but not limited to cases involving the COVID-19 pandemic, just as the agency is finalizing an action to raise its statutory maximum penalties for enforcement actions in 2021.

President-elect Joe Biden’s planned COVID-19 stimulus bill would allow OSHA to extend its expected emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the virus to industries the agency does not currently regulate, including several categories of government work, alongside boosts to OSHA’s enforcement and training budgets.

Correction Appended

Attorneys representing employers say President-elect Joe Biden could return Obama-era OSHA chief David Michaels to the agency on a short-term basis to lead its COVID-19 response, including possible development of an emergency temporary standard (ETS), ahead of Biden nominating a permanent OSHA secretary.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is further clarifying its recently adopted COVID-19 worker safety emergency temporary standard (ETS) for a variety of issues and situations, amid ongoing opposition from hundreds of employer and industry groups that are urging state leaders to delay enforcement of the rules and provide related relief.

OSHA is agreeing to strengthen its involvement in EPA’s program for reviewing new chemicals’ potential hazards before they enter the marketplace, but the new memorandum of understanding (MOU) seems to exclude evaluations of existing chemicals even though EPA has faced calls to boost its consideration of worker safety in its risk reviews.

A federal district judge has rejected a lawsuit by public health groups and Democratic states aimed at reversing OSHA’s rollback of an Obama-era rule setting electronic reporting and recordkeeping mandates for employers, ruling that the reversal was within regulators’ discretion and that the groups lacked standing to sue.

A federal appellate court is slated to hear arguments in March in the long-running suits brought by industry, labor and environmental groups seeking to reverse EPA’s first-time TSCA rule banning consumer uses of paint strippers containing methylene chloride, marking an early legal marker for how the Biden administration may address such rules.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit Jan. 7 scheduled oral arguments in Labor Council for Latin American Advancement et al. v. EPA et al. to be held March 4, months after the Biden administration takes office.

Local unions are welcoming President-elect Joe Biden’s selection of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as Labor Secretary, praising Walsh both for his overall stance on worker safety and his administration’s imposition of comprehensive workplace protections from COVID-19 -- previewing a top priority for the Biden OSHA.

President-elect Joe Biden has selected Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (D), a former president of the city’s building union, as his nominee for Secretary of Labor, following through on campaign promises to give unions a strong voice in labor policy and putting Walsh in charge of an expected push to ramp up OSHA’s enforcement efforts.

A coalition of agriculture industry groups is suing the California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) in a bid to overturn the state’s recently adopted COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for workplace safety, charging the new rules exceed the agency’s authority and threaten to cripple food production and distribution chains.

The action marks the second major lawsuit by industry groups to rescind the California ETS, with the first suit filed Dec. 16 by several employers and national business groups.

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has issued a new decision raising the bar for OSHA to enforce its rule that requires safe storage of material in tiers to prevent it from falling on workers, the latest in a series of decisions limiting use of existing standards on the eve of the Biden administration.

As the average age of workers rises due to delayed retirements, the economic recession and other factors, employers’ attorneys are warning companies that OSHA could step up enforcement related to ergonomics hazards that can pose a greater risk to older workers even though the agency lacks an explicit ergonomics standard.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) is pushing EPA to tighten its assessment of workplace risks from pigment violet 29 (PV29), arguing that the agency’s draft evaluation of the chemical underestimates the dangers of worker exposures, especially amid a respirator shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For OSHA’s 50th anniversary, President-elect Joe Biden is renewing his pledge to quickly direct the agency to consider whether to issue an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that would mandate workplace COVID-19 protections for employees, while also vowing to ramp up OSHA’s enforcement efforts and staffing levels.

In a Dec. 29 statement on the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s signing of the OSH Act that created the agency, Biden stopped short of an explicit promise to have OSHA issue an ETS.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Director John Howard is warning employers against strictly applying guidance NIOSH issued with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on reducing workplace COVID-19 infections, saying new research on the virus can render such guides “stale.”

During a Dec. 21 webcast interview hosted by the employer law firm Conn Maciel Carey, Howard said federal infection-control guidance “should not be slavishly applied as if it is a specification-oriented regulation or standard.”

OSHA is facing calls from public commenters to adopt a “prevention through design” (PtD) approach for its powered truck safety standard and incorporate several related data-gathering requirements in the rule based on an existing federal program that so far has focused mainly on building safety.

OSHA is seeking nominees to its Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH) as 14 of the panel’s 15 members near the expiration of their two-year terms, opening the possibility that the agency’s current leaders could appoint ACCSH’s new membership ahead of the transition to the Biden administration.