A Democratic-sponsored amendment to require that military-branded garments made in Bangladesh and sold at base retail stores owned by the Defense Department comply with an enforceable fire and building safety accord passed the House as part of a Defense authorization bill Friday (June 14).
OSHA and the Labor Department Solicitor's Office are struggling with legal and policy issues surrounding the agency's recently launched effort to tackle hazards faced by temporary workers -- especially how to deal with questions about whether a temp agency or host employer has primary responsibility for safety and health training and oversight, top agency officials say.
OSHA plans to name Dorothy Dougherty, currently chief of the agency's standards division, as its new deputy assistant secretary to replace Richard Fairfax, who retired this spring, sources tell Inside OSHA Online.
OSHA has rolled out a new policy directing how agency regions will handle inspections triggered by fatalities and willful violations found at Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) sites, mandating that regional administrators suspend an employer's VPP status pending investigation of the case.
NIOSH has proposed a new set of 28 drugs that it wants to add to its list of potentially dangerous antineoplastic and other hazardous drugs used in health care settings, teeing up a public discussion about controls to ensure health workers are not harmed from exposures and which drugs should be included.
Worker advocates say a string of first responder deaths during massive explosion and fire incidents in recent weeks underscores a need for extending more stringent OSHA protections to emergency workers nationally, especially those public sector employees who receive no jurisdictional coverage by federal OSHA or a state plan.
Budget sequestration, the automatic, across-the-board cuts now rippling across the government, are having a serious impact on OSHA's efforts to protect worker safety and health, Acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris warned lawmakers Thursday (June 6).
The Labor Department has reached an out-of-court deal with ex-OSHA official Robert Whitmore to settle his claims against the agency for $820,000, bringing the legal fight to a close in a six-year feud between OSHA and the former official, who has long sharply criticized injury and illness recordkeeping practices and portrayed himself as an agency whistleblower wrongfully fired for speaking out.
The White House has come under attack from a limited-government advocacy group that says President Obama's failure to name a new Labor Department Inspector General (IG) -- along with several other internal watchdog posts across the federal government -- undermines his claims of transparency.
OSHA's standards division is pushing ahead with efforts to propose a new rule designed to cut down on worker exposures to beryllium as soon as this year, officials say, tackling an issue that OSHA has tried to address for decades and which has been the subject of advocate petitions to OSHA.
OSHA has issued a final rule broadening an exemption for digger derricks used in the electric utility business from requirements in the agency's 2010 cranes and derricks standard.
A group of House Republicans on Friday (May 24) demanded that the White House explain why the Obama administration has so far failed to produce a spring regulatory agenda for federal agencies that was due in April, saying the delays are causing substantial regulatory uncertainty for employers.
Construction safety advocates are preparing to call on the Obama administration to draft an executive order that would require agency procurement officers to complete a worker health and safety checklist for bidders on federal building contracts.
NIOSH chief John Howard says the agency is working aggressively to develop science to bolster OSHA rulemaking -- especially in areas such as recommended exposure limits (RELs) for hazardous chemicals found in the workplace, which support development of OSHA's mandated permissible exposure limits (PELs) -- even as the research agency faces resource constraints and potentially looming budget cuts.
Construction experts advising OSHA on safety issues hope to persuade the agency to reverse plans to eliminate a fall protection rule requiring written training certification.
A key OSHA advisory group on construction safety and health issues is urging the agency to scrap its plans to extend by three years a requirement in the cranes and derricks standard for crane operator certification under the final rule, and to move as quickly as possible on any amendments to the standard.
OSHA intends to press on with two of its key outreach and education campaigns -- preventing heat illness and promoting fall protection measures -- even though the agency is faced with an increasingly tight budget and difficult decisions about where to allocate funds, agency chief David Michaels said Thursday (May 23).
OSHA is reaching out to agencies across the federal government in an effort to train staffers who are responsible for federal workers' safety and health, rolling out a range of training programs in areas including ergonomics, fall protection, hearing conservation, confined spaces, and distracted driving.
House appropriators on Tuesday (May 21) approved top-line spending amounts for each of 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2014 -- including a 22 percent cut to Labor, HHS and Education funding -- while also rejecting a Democratic proposal to replace the across-the-board sequestration cuts.
OSHA has become entangled in a congressional probe of the IRS and what critics describe as the tax agency's “targeting” of conservative groups in its review of requests for tax-exempt status, with one Republican lawmaker questioning why OSHA inspected the business of a tea party organizer in Texas not long after she filed such an application with the IRS.