Daily News

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is fighting labor unions’ argument that an Inspector General critique of USDA worker safety data undermines its contested rule allowing some slaughterhouses to increase line speeds, countering that the “preliminary” data has “no bearing on the validity of the Final Rule.”

OSHA is warning offshore fish-processing facilities to be prepared to quarantine workers who develop COVID-19 infections and to make plans for their safe transport back to shore, in the agency’s latest sector-specific virus guidance that highlights the challenges facing industries that depend on self-contained facilities.

Industry attorneys are largely welcoming a long-awaited IRS plan allowing companies to deduct from their federal taxes fines and penalties paid to the government under consent decrees, such as those resolving health, safety, and environmental enforcement actions.

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking remand from a federal district court to reconsider its rule allowing higher line speeds at some swine slaughterhouses after a judge faulted its consideration of worker safety risks, but labor groups challenging the policy oppose the reconsideration and say it would be a sham.

Citing OSHA’s refusal to develop an employer safety standard to protect against COVID-19 infections, Virginia’s health department is moving forward with the country’s first workplace rule to prevent or reduce infections in the workplace that could be a model for other states to use.

According to press reports, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) is expected to finalize an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 in the coming days, after the state health and safety board voted by a 9-3 margin on June 24 to advance a draft version of the rule.

Employment lawyers expect an “explosion” of lawsuits over workplace exposures to COVID-19 in the coming months and are warning employers to closely follow guidance from OSHA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other agencies to either avoid such complaints or provide solid defenses against them.

Clarification Appended

A newly published study finds public accusations against employers that violate OSHA standards are significantly more effective at boosting compliance than the agency’s facility inspections alone, not only at those workplaces but also at nearby competitors, concluding that “regulation by shaming” should be a top priority for OSHA.

And the report argues that OSHA and other agencies facing shrinking enforcement budgets should use the “shaming” of violators as a way to multiply the impacts of inspections they have the resources to conduct.

The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), a think tank that advocates for “robust” health and safety rules, is floating an aggressive agenda for federal agencies and Congress to protect workers from COVID-19, including issuance of an emergency OSHA standard to prevent infections that the agency is refusing to issue.

The AFL-CIO is asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review a three-judge panel’s decision rejecting its bid to force OSHA to craft an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the panel judges “wholly failed to consider” several issues in their two-page ruling.

Chemical industry groups and other sectors are looking to Congress to reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chemical facility safety program before its looming July 23 expiration, although one industry source says it is unlikely that a reauthorization bill would include any proposed policy revisions to the program.

OSHA is ramping up release of several new guidance documents to aid employers in preventing COVID-19 infections as they reopen following states’ relaxation of limits on in-person gatherings and businesses, adding to the agency’s approach of using non-binding guides rather than binding rules to target the virus.

Legal firms are warning California employers that they could be targeted with tort litigation by workers who claim they contracted COVID-19 as a result of a company’s failure to properly carry out Cal/OSHA safety rules for the virus -- a potentially much greater financial risk for firms than an increase in worker compensation claims.

Democrats and pro-regulatory group Public Citizen are opposing Republicans’ push to waive liability for employers whose workers contract COVID-19 on the job, signaling what could be an intense political battle ahead as the Senate GOP has said the waivers will be a top priority for any future COVID-19 relief bill.

Congressional Democrats are backing a federal lawsuit by Amazon employees alleging that the online retailer failed to protect workers at a New York City warehouse from COVID-19 infections, setting up a test of companies’ duty to follow state safety mandates during the pandemic after OSHA declined to issue an emergency standard.

A federal appeals court has rejected trade unions’ bid to force OSHA to craft an emergency temporary standard to protect workers from COVID-19, holding that the agency’s decision to rely on existing rules and guidance deserves “considerable deference” because of the “unprecedented” nature of the current pandemic.

EPA’s science advisors are deepening their concerns over the narrow scope of the agency’s draft evaluation of asbestos raising questions during a June 8 meeting on why EPA excluded consumer uses and all but chrysotile fiber types from its evaluation, as well as over EPA’s decision to evaluate legacy uses separately.

OSHA is launching its next round of Susan Harwood Training Grants despite the Trump administration’s long-running efforts to defund the program, marking a win for defenders of the grants that support training and education for workers and employers on workplace safety and health hazards, responsibilities and rights.

Critics of President Donald Trump’s latest deregulatory executive order (EO) are questioning whether it will drive significant new agency rollbacks without encountering major legal problems, though supporters are highlighting another aspect that imposes a series of principles designed to ensure “fairness” in enforcement actions.

Trump’s EO 13924, signed May 19, which urges OSHA and other agency heads to scale back existing rules, make permanent temporary waivers and take other steps to boost the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

EPA science advisors are unable to agree on whether the agency appropriately chose to base its analysis of the risks of the common solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) on the chemical’s adverse immune system effects rather than its historical -- and more conservative -- focus on fetal heart defects.

Industry groups are clashing with labor and health organizations over how Cal/OSHA should revise its proposed permanent rules for protecting outdoor workers from wildfire smoke, with both sides citing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in their calls to either relax or tighten certain provisions of the regulations.

Industries, for example, charge in part that providing N95 respirators to employees in certain situations is infeasible because of the demands for such masks due to the COVID-19 emergency.