Members of an OSHA advisory panel are expressing support for the agency’s preliminary plans to begin incorporating broad risk-based safety frameworks in its guidance documents and rulemakings, but are cautioning officials to first conduct outreach to inform employers about the new model before developing enforcement materials.
The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has released a slew of new research on the effectiveness of workplace COVID-19 controls, including those related to masking and distancing, with advice that could bolster the case for tough new safety measures in OSHA’s permanent COVID-19 standard for the healthcare sector.
OSHA head Doug Parker says the agency is not formally withdrawing its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the healthcare sector but will not enforce the rule while a union-led lawsuit plays out, spurring outrage from labor advocates who are urging the agency to ramp up protections and implement a permanent standard for healthcare workers.
Employers’ attorneys say OSHA’s recent COVID-19 enforcement action against an Ohio auto parts supplier includes several suggested mitigation steps that “should be gravely concerning to employers,” arguing that many safeguards the agency is saying are necessary to avoid citations are either impractical or outside its OSH Act authority to require.
OSHA’s deputy director of standards and guidance says the agency’s push to promulgate a final COVID-19 standard for the healthcare sector in “six to nine months” will likely alter the timeline for some related rulemakings it outlined in the fall unified agenda, including both its proposed workplace violence and infectious disease standards for the industry.
Environmentalists are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “act now” to expand its chemical facility safety rule, particularly to include ammonium nitrate, arguing that a recent fire at a North Carolina fertilizer plant serves as a “wake up call” for the need to bolster protections against future disasters.
OSHA is proposing the first update since 1998 to its safety standard for industrial powered trucks, aiming to align design and manufacturing requirements with modern consensus standards as part of a broader effort to revamp a slew of outdated regulations, including a provision that would allow it to use guidance rather than rulemaking for future updates.
Chemical industry sources say OSHA has been “dismissive” of their concerns over its controversial proposal to add new data requirements for downstream chemical uses to its updated Hazard Communication Standard (HCS), and are not ruling out legal action if the agency proceeds with the rule as proposed.
California could become the first state to mandate COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment for all public and private sector workers under a newly proposed bill that its sponsor says aims to fill the gap left by the Supreme Court’s Jan. 13 decision to stay federal OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing emergency standard for large employers.
Attorneys are cautioning employers to maintain workplace COVID-19 protections including masking and social-distancing requirements despite states’ moves to loosen or drop their pandemic regulations, saying federal policy on the pandemic has become a “moving target” with enforcement still likely in response to larger outbreaks.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral argument April 4 in labor groups’ bid to reinstate OSHA’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the healthcare sector, setting the stage for what could be a precedent-setting decision on whether the agency has authority -- or even a duty -- to extend such emergency regulations.
OSHA has released a new regulatory interpretation letter outlining its test for when a worker's injuries in a traffic accident are considered “work-related” and subject to the agency’s recordkeeping and reporting requirements, warning employers that injuries sustained outside of a “normal commute” are recordable.
Oregon’s worker safety agency has released its long-awaited proposal for a permanent heat illness prevention standard as part of a broader state effort to mitigate the impacts of climate change that also includes a workplace standard for wildfire smoke exposure, just as OSHA is conducting its own outreach for a nationwide heat stress rulemaking.
Former Department of Labor (DOL) officials are urging a federal appeals court to reverse a district judge’s ruling limiting the circumstances where worker can sue OSHA for failing to take action on an “imminent danger,” saying the decision wrongly interprets the statute and could lead to “irremediable intra-Departmental conflicts.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is convening a three-judge “merits” panel to consider unions’ lawsuit seeking an order that would force OSHA to reinstate its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare workers and quickly release a permanent rule, in a potential sign that the court is taking the case seriously.
A new federal circuit court ruling appears to set a more demanding standard for OSHA to show that an employer could “reasonably foresee” worker misconduct, in a decision that aims to clarify a “confusing patchwork” of precedent on where the burden of proof lies in cases dealing with the adequacy of an employer’s safety program.
Workers at a Pennsylvania meat-packing plant are asking a federal appeals court to take up their potentially precedent-setting suit against OSHA over its failure to cite their employer for what they say were inadequate COVID-19 protections, arguing that the case remains relevant over a year after they first brought the claims.
Worker safety advocates and Democratic state attorneys are pushing OSHA to adopt a broad, environmental-justice focused heat stress standard that would require employers to adopt dual environmental and physiological heat monitoring programs, comprehensive mitigation methods and new recordkeeping requirements.
Katherine Lemos, chair of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), said at a recent meeting that she would delay votes on “the mounting number of recommendations” before the board until its two new members who won Senate confirmation in December are formally sworn in -- a step she said could come as soon as this week.
Labor groups suing to reinstate OSHA’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the healthcare sector are claiming that the agency offered “no cognizable rationale” for allowing the rule to expire, ignored a key procedural step in that process, and bucked its own precedents when it dropped the ETS without a permanent standard to replace it.