The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has upheld OSHA’s enforcement citation for a 2016 accident where a crane being prepared for dismantling touched a live power line, rejecting the employer’s argument that safety standards for crane “disassembly” do not apply to preparatory steps leading up to taking the machine apart.
OSHA has announced a new, three-year national emphasis program (NEP) aiming to ramp up inspections and enforcement at warehouses, processing facilities, distribution centers and high-risk retail establishments, following what the agency says is a dramatic increase in their injury rates since 2013.
EPA officials are hoping to sign an agreement with OSHA ahead of final action on their slate of pending TSCA chemical-safety rules that would set terms for the two agencies to coordinate on enforcement of the toxics program’s planned workplace protections, including exposure limits that observers say EPA would struggle to implement on its own.
OSHA is touting a new two-year agreement that it signed last week with an alliance of trade organizations, employers and unions to bolster outreach and education measures for trenching and excavation safety further boosting the agency’s emphasis on those protections after it ramped up inspections last year in response to a rise in accidents and deaths.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is urging OSHA to craft a safety standard for meat and poultry workers that would cover infectious disease in a new report that says the agency’s “continuing challenges” in the sector have been deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that it “missed opportunities” to collaborate with other authorities to address them.
South Carolina is defending its latest challenge to OSHA’s mandate for states to match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, arguing courts should not force it to “bet the farm” by provoking an enforcement action before suing over the policy, and that time spent on a prior case should not count against the statute of limitations.
A federal appeals court has rejected an Ohio construction company’s claims that OSHA unfairly cited it for safety and training violations after a 2018 incident where a crane arm fell and struck a worker, holding that the agency’s allegations were supported by “substantial evidence” and that the employer had “fair notice” of the claims against it.
OSHA is asking a federal district court to dismiss South Carolina’s latest challenge to the agency’s yet-unenforced requirement for states to raise their maximum penalties for workplace health and safety violations to match federal levels, saying the case was filed too late and fails to show any harm from the policy, among other flaws.
OSHA is rejecting construction-sector criticism of its National Emphasis Program (NEP) on heat-related illness that said the initiative risks creating unclear mandates worker protection, with the agency arguing that its initiative merely seeks to enforce the OSH Act’s general duty clause (GDC) and vowing to continue providing compliance assistance to employers.
Industry attorneys are questioning OSHA’s plan to soon issue an interim final rule (IFR) that the agency says will provide “clarity” on its use of subpoenas but which one attorney says may include major changes to the process without a notice and comment period.