Daily News

Two House Democrats responsible for funding the Labor Department are urging officials to craft by next April a “comprehensive strategy on enforcement” to address concerns about child labor safety in the agriculture sector after a recent watchdog report found the sector is responsible for a disproportionate number of child labor fatalities.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has found a small decrease in the rate and number of workplace fatalities and injuries in 2017 but the data show a continued spike of 25 percent or more in workplace deaths in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector, as well as fatalities due to falls and overdoses.

A coalition convened by NIOSH has outlined plans for a broad research agenda aimed at improving worker safety in the oil and gas extraction industry amid signs that while drilling activities have increased significantly, drillers may not be willing to invest in safety technologies and programs as fuel prices remain low, cutting into industry profits.

Echoing concerns raised by a 2017 congressional watchdog report, a top House Democrat is urging OSHA to investigate whether a Texas poultry plant violated the agency's sanitation standard and to conduct inspections “where compliance offices speak not only with management, but workers and their representatives.”

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing federal health agencies to study the health effects of occupational exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on firefighters and others in future studies on the chemicals, expressing disappointment that the agencies recently precluded the subjects from an ongoing investigation.

Public Citizen and other health groups are preparing to file a motion asking a federal judge to quickly order the Trump OSHA to require employers to submit detailed 2017 worker injury and illness reports as required by a now-delayed Obama-era rule after the judge rejected agency efforts to dismiss the case and upheld the groups' standing to sue.

Top Democrats and labor advocates are clashing with healthcare industry groups over the Trump administration's proposed rule rolling back child-labor protections to allow teenagers to independently operate powered patient lifts, underscoring the continued controversy the proposal will face as officials work to finalize it next year.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that seeks to overturn the 21-year-old precedent that requires judges to defer to OSHA and other agencies on the meaning of their regulations -- a precedent at the center of many court rulings addressing agency rules but one that many of the court's conservatives have openly criticized for years.

OSHA is proposing to clarify a suite of provisions and definitions in the Obama-era beryllium standard for general industry, including modified definitions for “dermal contact” and a “beryllium work area,” terms that act as thresholds for when employers must provide protective gear.

The measure is winning praise from labor groups, whose officials say it will help employers comply with the standard and lead to better protections for workers.

The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) is urging OSHA and other agencies to harmonize respiratory standards in healthcare to protect against future airborne disease outbreaks, but appears to sidestep the past debate between OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on proper guidance for using certain reusable respirators.

OSHA is consulting with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and weighing enforcement to protect workers from exposure to strong antimicrobial disinfectants used in meat and poultry processing, after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned of serious gaps in federal oversight and urged coordination on the chemicals' risks.

Citing risks of climate change, Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) is crafting a bill for introduction in the next Congress that would require OSHA to develop “federal heat protection standards” for workers and require employers to provide safe workplaces with water, rest, and shade, a measure that supporters say may be the most viable means of requiring such a standard.

Lawmakers negotiating a new five-year Farm Bill have agreed to Democrats' demands to drop language originally included in the House version of the bill that aimed to codify a permanent waiver from OSHA's process safety management (PSM) standards for retail facilities, Capitol Hill sources say.

The sources add that the final version of the House-Senate conference report reflects the Senate bill, which did not contain the provision.

OSHA and other Labor Department (DOL) officials are agreeing with Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls to bolster a suite of protections to prevent injury and illness among child laborers in agriculture and other sectors, strengthening Democrats' efforts to scrutinize Trump administration plans to ease child-labor rules for teens in the healthcare sector.

In a report released Dec. 3, GAO found that even though work-related injuries and illness in children has decreased, more than half of child-labor deaths were in agriculture.

In compliance with an appellate court order, EPA is issuing a final rule imposing requirements of the Obama administration's January 2017 final rule strengthening the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program, despite plans to issue early next year a final rule largely scrapping the Obama-era rule.

The Labor Department’s Inspector General (OIG) is slated to release in fiscal year 2019 a broad series of inquiries into OSHA enforcement and regulatory practices, reviews that could aid Democrats who will control the House next year and are already planning significant oversight of the Trump administration's worker safety programs.

Alexandra Dunn, President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as EPA's toxics chief, is likely to face tough questions at her Nov. 29 confirmation hearing given Democrats long-standing opposition to Trump administration rules setting a framework for how EPA will consider chemicals' risks to workers and others under the revised toxics law.

Correction Appended

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is backing OSHA's policy that allows the agency to cite “controlling employers” for hazards to other employers' workers on a job site, backing, for the first time in this appellate circuit, the use of Chevron deference to uphold OSHA's OSH Act authority to address multi-employer sites.

OSHA continues to bolster its oversight of industrial facilities through inspections under a 2017 National Emphasis Program (NEP) and data-sharing with EPA enforcement officials, despite the agency's decision to shelve a planned strengthening of its process safety management (PSM) rule, according to industry attorneys.

A coalition convened by NIOSH is calling for a review of existing ergonomic guidelines to ensure they are appropriate for current work environments, opening the door to a debate on whether current policies are adequate to protect against harms in food processing and other sectors.