Employers and industry groups hope to fast-track further changes to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) after the agency’s regulatory body adopted new requirements in “bizarre” fashion on June 4, drawing charges that the new mandates clash with federal guidance and the state’s reopening plan.
Employer and industry attorneys are criticizing the California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) draft revised COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) as not appropriately relaxed to conform with new physical distancing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ahead of a key June 3 vote by the agency’s standards board.
Republicans on the Senate labor committee are calling on Doug Parker, President Joe Biden’s nominee as the next OSHA chief, to withdraw the agency’s planned COVID-19 standard (ETS), telling Parker during his May 27 confirmation hearing that vaccinations have eliminated the need for a pandemic worker safety rule.
OSHA is walking back its guidance for employers to treat adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccination as “work-related” for recordkeeping and reporting purposes if the vaccine was “required” for workers, promising not to enforce that mandate until at least 2022 in order to avoid “any appearance of discouraging” vaccination.
OSHA says employers should follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new COVID-19 guidance exempting fully vaccinated people from many infection-control measures like masking and social distancing when deciding what is “appropriate to protect fully vaccinated workers,” and plans to soon update its own guide.
Employers are pressing OSHA to soften its planned COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) by citing the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new guidance loosening mask mandates and other requirements for fully vaccinated people, saying it undermines prior calls for strict workplace mandates.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has unveiled new COVID-19 guidance that allows “fully vaccinated” individuals to avoid wearing masks or socially distancing in many settings, just as employers are urging OSHA to include similar language in its upcoming emergency temporary standard (ETS).
Attorneys representing employers and industry groups say draft revisions to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) represent a “big improvement” over the current rules, including easing some requirements covering what constitutes exposure, notification requirements and testing obligations.
An OSHA enforcement official says the agency is working with the Department of Labor’s Office of the Solicitor (SOL) on policies for considering vaccinated workers’ status as it implements its COVID-19 national emphasis program (NEP), with delegated states slated to decide soon on whether to adopt the federal enforcement plan.
As the White House continues to weigh OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, several states are adapting their emergency pandemic rules for long-term use, including moves by California regulators to loosen requirements for vaccinated workers and by Oregon to retain that state’s once-temporary standard indefinitely.