OSHA is ordering Wells Fargo to pay $22 million in damages to a former senior manager who was terminated from the banking giant in 2019 after “repeatedly” raising concerns over alleged misconduct apparently linked to its account-fraud scandal -- years after an internal investigation found the agency mishandled similar claims.
September 17, 2026
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit is set to hear oral argument next week in a suit brought by workers at a Pennsylvania meat plant challenging the Trump OSHA’s refusal to take enforcement action over what they say was an “imminent danger” of COVID-19 infection at their workplace, in a test of one of the OSH Act’s few private rights of action.
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California construction industry representatives are attacking an informal proposal by California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to adopt federal fall-protection safety standards for residential frame construction that the employers argue are less protective than the state’s existing policy, and are seeking a meeting with federal OSHA, Cal/OSHA, labor and other stakeholders.
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A top union official is urging EPA to follow OSHA’s approach to assessing workplace risks from toxic chemicals rather than “reinventing the wheel” for the TSCA program, saying a new framework would create unnecessary difficulties for employers and workers alike, while other experts warned that contradictory systems will frustrate data-sharing.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected unions’ bid to reinstate OSHA’s COVID-19 healthcare emergency temporary standard (ETS) and impose a strict deadline for the agency to issue a permanent replacement, holding that the OSH Act imposes no “clear duty” on officials to take either step.
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Staff at California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board are facing pressure from worker-safety advocates and members of the panel itself to more fully explore the potential impacts from a proposed long-term COVID-19 safety rule that would eliminate exclusion pay and redefine the definition of “close contact” from the current, temporary policy.
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Two Universal Health Services (UHS) subsidiaries are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to reverse an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that they say created a “near-boundless” test for when multiple companies can be considered a joint employer under the OSH Act.
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Employers’ attorneys are alerting their clients that OSHA is drafting guidance on monkeypox virus (MPV) workplace safety and could release it as soon as early September, even while reiterating that the OSH Act’s General Duty clause requires workplaces to be “free from recognized serious health hazards” like MPV even without specific guides.
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Despite EPA’s proposal of a facility safety rule that goes beyond the provisions of an Obama-era regulation, environmentalists are pressing the agency to require more actions, saying provisions in the proposed risk management program (RMP) rule do not go far enough to protect overburdened communities and prevent chemical spills.
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EPA Administrator Michael Regan has signed a proposed Risk Management Program (RMP) rule that would reinstate controversial provisions contained in an Obama-era regulation, but removed by the Trump administration, as well require new actions aimed at “empowering workers” in facility safety considerations.
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OSHA finalized a “complete overhaul” of its handbook for investigating whistleblower retaliation complaints, incorporating a long list of previously separate guidance into the core manual and setting new procedural requirements for various steps of the process, triggering a mandate for state plans to adopt their own version of the new document.
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An industry attorney says employers are facing a “big change” in the worker safeguards required by EPA’s significant new use rules (SNURs) for chemical safety after that agency adopted a new policy tightening several elements of the rules, including adoption of a hierarchy of controls model long favored by OSHA.
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The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) has scheduled a series of workshops that will seek in part to address industry concerns over differences in how EPA’s occupational risk analyses under TSCA differ from practices at agencies like OSHA or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and those of industrial hygienists.
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South Carolina is asking a federal district court to block what it says is an unlawful campaign by OSHA to require states to increase their maximum work-safety penalties to at least the federal maximum, claiming that the agency is going far beyond what Congress allowed under the OSH Act mandate for state plans to be “at least as effective” as its program.
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California’s plan to list nail products containing toluene as a “priority product” under its green chemistry program is drawing fire from labor and health groups, who charge its use of an industry-backed “alternatives analysis threshold” (AAT) will expose too many salon employees to unsafe levels of the chemical.
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OSHA is seeking a massive $1.2 million penalty from the discount retail chain Family Dollar over alleged violations at two Ohio stores that the agency says are the latest in “a long and disturbing history” of similar safety hazards at the company’s facilities, underscoring the Biden administration’s efforts to step up the agency’s enforcement program.
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OSHA is seeking $110,630 in penalties for an ammonia leak at a Georgia poultry plant that the agency says hospitalized two workers and forced dozens more to evacuate, as the agency prepares to pursue an update to the process safety management (PSM) standard at the heart of the case, in parallel with EPA’s reforms to its own facility-safety rule.
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Oil sector groups are joining industry attacks on EPA’s decision to drop an assumption that workers will use personal protective equipment (PPE) from Trump-era TSCA evaluations, echoing claims that the new policy is unlawful and irrational while also asserting it is impossible to fit with the existing risk reviews and requires a new, multi-year process.
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The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has provisionally selected the panel that will peer review the Biden administration’s draft assessment of the risks of workplace and other exposures to formaldehyde, despite calls from GOP lawmakers who had sought additional scrutiny on whether the panel selection process and staff are impartial.
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Two groups representing employers and industry are laying out detailed objections to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) proposed workplace violence standard for “all industries,” including over a perceived lack of input from law enforcement, incident-logging requirements, employee privacy, enforcement and definitions of key terms -- including violence.
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