Lawmakers have agreed to extend current funding for OSHA and other executive agencies to Dec. 11, delaying a battle over potential fiscal year 2021 budget cuts or boosts until after the election -- and likely after the Senate battle over confirming a successor to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) plans to enact the country’s third emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 after its standards board voted Sept. 17 to accept unions’ petition for a binding rule -- just as the state government approved a bill requiring worker notices and even facility closures in response to workplace coronavirus outbreaks.
OSHA is continuing to unveil citations against employers over alleged failures to protect their workers from COVID-19, but labor unions and other Trump administration foes say the small financial penalties the agency is seeking are further evidence that its response to the pandemic has been unacceptably weak.
A bipartisan group of House moderates is backing a compromise proposal on COVID-19 relief including a limited employee liability waiver with a role for OSHA, signaling potential movement toward new negotiations after President Donald Trump called on Republicans to accept a higher price tag for a consensus bill.
OSHA is revising its 2010 standards governing the use of cranes and derricks to add a host of exemptions for railroad work, reflecting both a 2014 settlement with the railroad industry and recent rulemakings by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that the agency says preempted its authority in many areas.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has recently fined more than a dozen companies a total of over $500,000 for allegedly failing to protect workers from COVID-19, with the bulk being levied on a frozen food manufacturer and the temporary employment firm it uses at more than $200,000 each.
OSHA has issued what appears to be its first citation to an employer for failing to protect workers from COVID-19 infections under the OSH Act’s general duty clause, a provision that attorneys have predicted will be the agency’s main authority for enforcing its array of sector-specific virus guidances during the pandemic.
The Senate has rejected Republicans’ “skinny” COVID-19 relief bill along party lines with Democrats decrying an employer liability waiver against OSHA enforcement as one of many “poison pills” that doomed the proposal, casting doubt on whether Congress will be able to approve any further virus-related relief bill this year.
The pro-regulatory group Public Citizen is suing the Department of Labor (DOL) seeking release of records from the development of OSHA’s enforcement memo that promised not to take legal action against meat and poultry plants that make “good-faith” efforts to comply with federal COVID-19 workplace safety guidance.
Several states are starting to use the threat of enforcement to implement non-binding COVID-19 workplace safety measures including guidance documents issued by OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), says an attorney who sees the efforts as a move by the states to enforcing voluntary safety steps.
California lawmakers have approved a controversial labor-backed bill to create an extensive list of notices that employers would have to provide to employees and others if a worker is exposed to COVID-19 and would authorize the state’s OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to shut down facilities if they are an “imminent hazard” to workers due to the virus.
Michigan’s state workplace safety agency is targeting its COVID-19 enforcement on retail businesses through an “emphasis program” focused primarily on restaurants with grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores as secondary priorities, and applying the state’s existing safety rules rather than issuing a pandemic-specific standard.
Oregon officials say their recently proposed COVID-19 workplace safety standard is largely designed to “formalize and standardize” pandemic employee protection guidance from OSHA and other agencies while adding specific requirements for social distancing, medical removal and infection-control planning.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has set off a flood of whistleblower complaints to OSHA even as the agency’s capacity to handle new complaints has declined, and is urging officials to bolster that capacity through new hiring and administrative measures.
Amazon.com employees are urging a federal district court to reject the company’s arguments that their claims of inadequate COVID-19 protections at a New York City warehouse fall within OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction,” saying their claims that the retailer is violating state laws and pandemic orders are separate from any agency role.
OSHA’s final revisions to beryllium worker exposure standards follow through on the agency’s proposal to “tailor” the rule’s application to the shipyard and construction industries, setting up potential legal battles with health and labor and industry groups that have said various aspects of the proposal lack a legal or scientific basis.
Meat and farming industry groups are backing the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its legal defense of a program that allows hog slaughterhouses to increase their line speeds above regulatory maximum limits, arguing that despite unions’ claims there is no proof that higher speeds will endanger workers.
OSHA in a new legal filing is downplaying arguments that employers must scrupulously follow all agency guidance for protecting workers from COVID-19 infections, instead saying the guides set out a “hierarchy of controls” and companies should adopt “a proper mix of protective measures” to avoid OSHA enforcement action.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Mine Health and Safety Administration (MSHA) is defending its decision not to craft an enforceable COVID-19 safety standard to protect mine workers, reinforcing the department’s broad policy of using guidance instead of binding rules to guide employers’ responses to the pandemic.
OSHA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued guidance for food manufacturing and processing companies to protect employees from COVID-19 risks, urging them craft detailed infection control plans among other measures and signaling that employers who refuse could face enforcement action.