Industry attorneys say they expect OSHA’s forthcoming rule on COVID-19 vaccination to offer employers the “option” of mandating vaccines for workers rather than offering weekly tests as an alternative, among other potential details they say are likely based on statements from President Joe Biden and agency officials.
September 17, 2026
OSHA is strengthening enforcement and outreach “to better protect heat-exposed workers” as part of a larger “multi-prong” initiative from the Biden administration to combat heat-related illness, after worker-safety and environmental groups pressed the White House for action following this summer’s record-setting heat waves.
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OSHA’s New England Region I is stepping up enforcement targeting “tree trimming and removal, landscaping and site preparation” work, saying the 31 reported worker deaths in those sectors since 2016 are “alarming and unacceptable” to the point where they warrant a formal regional emphasis program (REP).
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OSHA’s director of maritime and agriculture safety says the Biden administration is requiring all new OSHA guidance products such as workplace posters and safety notices to go through review by agency leadership, adding a new layer of scrutiny even as officials are aiming to release a slew of such guides by the end of 2021.
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Legal scrutiny of OSHA’s pending vaccine mandate is ramping up, as Arizona’s attorney general has filed what appears to be the first suit to block the rule while unions that challenged the agency’s earlier COVID-19 standard for the healthcare sector are suspending that suit to consider how the agency’s new policy will affect it.
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Provisions in the House’s $3.5 trillion spending bill would raise the statutory penalties for OSH Act violations by a factor of 10, up to a minimum of $50,000 and maximum of $700,000 -- setting the stage for Democrats to pass a key element of their a long-running push for broader reforms to the law.
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OSHA’s forthcoming COVID-19 vaccination rule is getting a cautious reception from labor and work-safety groups, with several saying “the devil is in the details” and urging officials to carefully balance concerns for worker safety and privacy while maintaining calls for a broader workplace health rule.
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Republican governors are vowing to oppose President Joe Biden’s newly announced plan for OSHA to mandate strict COVID-19 vaccination requirements for private-sector employers, threatening court challenges and executive orders aimed at blocking any workplace vaccine requirement.
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In a first-of-its-kind partnership, OSHA is pledging to craft pilot programs with Mexico that will allow its consulates to file safety complaints and share feedback on behalf of Mexican nationals working in the United States, as part of a newly announced bilateral agreement to improve the well-being of Mexican workers under U.S. jurisdiction.
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Attorneys say employers should be ready to quickly resume compliance with a host of Obama-era OSHA policies linked to its contentious electronic reporting rule, including anti-retaliation measures that barred many workplace safety incentives, as the agency prepares to propose a new version of the regulation as soon as December.
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OSHA has reworked a long-standing “interpretive rule” to specify that proving whistleblower retaliation requires showing that protected activity was the “but-for” cause of an employer’s discriminatory action, based on several recent Supreme Court decisions the agency had already incorporated into less-formal guidance.
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Worker-safety and environmental groups are seeking alternative paths to a comprehensive emergency temporary standard (ETS) for heat illness including a push for state-level policies, citing concerns that OSHA lacks the staff or resources to quickly craft such a rule alongside its top priority of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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A new Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) raises the already-high bar OSHA must clear to cite employers for a willful violation of its noise exposure standard, holding that the agency must go beyond showing that an employer had a heightened awareness of the standard.
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OSHA’s nationwide suicide-prevention training initiative for the construction sector could build a record to support for formal guidance or even enforcement action, several employers’ attorneys tell Inside OSHA, though they say the agency is likely to face an uphill battle if it does pursue that path.
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OSHA’s deputy regulatory chief told an Aug. 31 conference the agency plans to let its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) expire after a six-month window, noting that while future developments could lead officials to reverse course, its plan “at this point” is to allow the rule to sunset before proposing a permanent disease rule.
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California lawmakers are advancing several worker-safety bills supported by labor unions and opposed by employer groups ahead of a Sept. 10 deadline to pass legislation, including measures aimed at protecting warehouse employees and speeding new safety rules by exempting them from mandatory cost-impact analyses.
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Labor groups are urging OSHA to rework and make permanent its temporary COVID-19 standard, including calls from nurses to mandate vaccination for health workers while general-industry unions hope to extend the rule to all sectors and decouple it from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.
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Health care employers say OSHA’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) conflicts with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance and say recent findings supports loosening key provisions in the rule, alongside calls to delay implementation by up to six months and scrap plans to enact a permanent version of the ETS.
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As California struggles to contain record-setting wildfires, state lawmakers appear poised to approve legislation that would require Cal/OSHA to create a “wildfire strike team” it could deploy during dangerous air quality events to investigate agricultural workplaces for compliance with wildfire smoke worker-safety requirements.
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OSHA is launching a novel nationwide suicide-prevention training initiative for the construction sector, expanding on a 2020 regional effort based in part on a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that found the industry’s suicide rate was four times higher than that of the general population.
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