OSHA has issued an interim final rule detailing new procedures for handling cases of alleged retaliation against whistleblowers who come forward about violations of antitrust law, introducing a process specific to the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act (CAARA) for the first time.
Democratic attorneys general (AGs) in seven states are petitioning OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for occupational heat exposure to take effect on May 1, arguing that workplace heat exacerbated by climate change poses a “grave danger” to tens of millions of employees around the country.
EPA says its draft risk assessment of formaldehyde will be a model for reforms to the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, even as employers continue to question its finding that studies of exposed workers show inhaling the chemical can cause leukemia and accuse the agency of misleading peer reviewers on its methods.
OSHA has issued citations at three more Amazon warehouses claiming it exposed workers to a high risk of injury and delivered hazard alert letters detailing alleged ergonomic hazards at the facilities, further escalating the agency’s recent series of enforcement actions against the retailer and pressing it to develop a “company-wide strategy” to address them.
Employer law firms say OSHA’s new directives for regional enforcement officials to step up use of “instance-by-instance” citations and avoid “grouping” multiple violations under a single penalty shows that the agency is seeking to tighten enforcement and boost monetary penalties nationwide, with one calling the moves a “game changer.”
Environmental groups used a flurry of recent meetings with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to renew their calls for a strict rule banning all use of the solvent methylene chloride, highlighting research they say shows both its acute toxicity and ongoing worker deaths even under OSHA’s current safety standards.
Unions, Democratic-led states and pro-regulatory groups are lining up against a contracting firm’s lawsuit claiming OSHA’s authority to craft and enforce safety standards is unconstitutional, calling the company’s claims untethered from the law and warning that granting its request would “hobble” workplace safeguards nationwide.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit is backing OSHA’s narrow reading of a little-used provision in the OSH Act allowing workers to sue the agency when it fails to address an “imminent danger” of workplace harm, agreeing that such suits face the same six-month statute of limitations as federal enforcement action under the law.
Oregon logging and forestry groups will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to let them challenge the state’s workplace safety rules in federal court on the theory that state plans are effectively agents of OSHA rather than their own state governments -- an approach that would open the door to bifurcated litigation on a host of issues.
OSHA is instructing regional enforcement officers to avoid grouping together employers’ alleged health and safety violations and instead prioritize “instance-by-instance” citations that could lead to greatly increased overall penalties, loosening a long-standing policy that said such citations should only come in response to “clear bad faith” by an employer.
With new support from 18 more lawmakers, a group of House and Senate Democrats is renewing its call for EPA to toughen its proposed risk management program (RMP) rule when it finalizes the rule later this year, seeking to shore up the rulemaking just days after one of their key supporters announced plans to leave EPA after failing to win Senate confirmation.
Industry attorneys say an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) case where the panel underlined the “creating employer” test for liability at multi-employer worksites could also showcase the limits of that doctrine for OSHA enforcement, especially the need to prove that the company had knowledge of the danger it allegedly created.
Officials with the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) say the group is pushing both OSHA and EPA to prioritize enforcing their Risk Management Program (RMP) and process safety management (PSM) standard facility safety policies rather than overhauling and expanding them through pending rules.
OSHA is urging a federal appeals court to reject an employer’s arguments that the OSH Act’s safety standard program is unconstitutional under the “non-delegation” doctrine, arguing that both the law itself and Supreme Court precedent establish well-defined limits on that authority.
OSHA is citing Amazon over a wide range of alleged safety violations at three of the retailer’s warehouses in Florida, Illinois and New York, marking the latest step in an investigation prompted by rare referrals from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the agency.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has narrowly voted to recommend that agency staff add “exclusion pay” requirements to a forthcoming long-term infectious disease standard for general industry, renewing debate over the mandate after officials dropped it from new COVID-19 safety standards.
Employer representatives and worker-safety advocates are targeting a host of upcoming California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) draft safety rules for scrutiny and likely policy battles, including standards for lead exposures, workplace violence, indoor heat, and a permanent infectious disease standard that is expected to include a controversial “exclusion pay” requirement.
OSHA is raising its minimum and maximum penalties for OSH Act violations by 7.7 percent to account for inflation, an even larger hike than the prior year and one the agency is again ordering states to adopt in their own work-safety programs even as it awaits a federal judge’s ruling in litigation over whether that mandate is lawful.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) is underscoring the importance of the “creating employer” doctrine for identifying liability for safety violations at multi-employer worksites, as the panel remanded for new proceedings a case where an administrative law judge (ALJ) rejected an OSHA crane-safety violation under separate test for identifying “controlling” employers at such sites.
Health and work-safety groups that sued over OSHA’s Trump-era rollback of electronic recordkeeping mandates are pressing to resume their suit after the Biden administration moved its target for finalizing a new, stricter rule from March to June, saying the agency’s “pattern of reneging on its agreements” means litigation is the only sure path to resolve their claims.