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.
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).
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.
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.
Labor unions are urging Oregon’s worker-safety agency to strengthen its recently proposed permanent heat illness prevention standard by eliminating several key exemptions they say provide businesses with too much flexibility over worker conditions, while at the same time federal OSHA has begun weighing feedback on its own national heat stress rulemaking.
President Joe Biden is directing OSHA to update guidance to employers on how to protect workers from COVID-19 as part of his newly announced plan to transition the country from a pandemic to an endemic approach to combating the virus, prompting fresh questions about how OSHA’s COVID-19 enforcement policies could shift in the coming weeks.
Worker safety advocates say the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) new report urging the Biden administration to account for climate and environmental justice (EJ) risks in an upcoming update to its risk management program (RMP) facility safety rule bolsters their longstanding calls to restore and strengthen the Obama-era version of the rule, especially as scientists see climate risks growing.
OSHA says it expects to publish a suite of new and updated heat stress-prevention products in the coming months, with outreach targeted at minority and non-English-speaking workers, while aiming to release additional materials later this year based on feedback from a new advisory panel.