A federal appeals court has denied a Kentucky mining firm’s bid to narrow or even scrap as unconstitutional the statutory ban on warning employers or workers of imminent safety inspections, rejecting the company’s argument that the restriction -- which appears in both the Mine Safety and Health Act and the OSH Act -- violates its free-speech rights.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has rejected a Florida contracting firm’s argument that the multi-employer doctrine that allows OSHA to cite several companies at the same worksite for a single hazard conflicts with precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, even as it overturned the citation at the heart of the dispute.
A Massachusetts hospital and its Delaware-based management company are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to review an OSHA enforcement action that treated the two as a “single employer,” setting up a potentially precedent-setting decision on when the agency can subject firms to higher penalties that stem from such a standard.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has largely upheld an enforcement citation stemming from a 2018 construction accident, holding that OSHA’s safety standard for cranes and derricks requires strict adherence to equipment manuals and rejecting the employer’s argument that its use of “similar” safety measures was sufficient.
OSHA is formally launching its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for heat danger, directing its enforcement office to “proactively initiate inspections” and outreach targeted at workplaces in more than 70 industries deemed “high-risk” while expanding inspections of all industries to cover heat-related hazards and safeguards.
A new Office of Inspector General (OIG) report says OSHA took few steps to address possible COVID-19 infection dangers to workers at other federal agencies since 2020, including a finding that it “neither tracked nor analyzed” data that could have provided insight into pandemic-related hazards facing those agencies’ staffs or workers at large.
OSHA is starting a new enforcement initiative targeting employers who have failed to submit annual “Form 300A” summaries of their annual injury and illness data through the agency’s online disclosure tool, just as it is proposing to reestablish broad electronic reporting requirements that would expand the mandate to also cover records of individual incidents.
The White House is asking Congress to raise OSHA’s budget by nearly $90 million in fiscal year 2023, with more than half of those funds earmarked for enforcement just as the agency is unveiling a new strategic plan calling for a 25 percent increase in workplace health and safety inspections by the end of the calendar year.
OSHA is reversing its Trump-era arguments that prompted a federal district court to narrow the application of a little-used OSH Act provision allowing workers to sue the agency to force action on an “imminent” workplace danger, after former officials said the precedent could undermine enforcement more broadly.
OSHA has announced a three-month initiative that will escalate its follow-up inspections of hospitals and other skilled nursing facilities that have prior pandemic-related citations or complaints, as the agency seeks to develop a permanent COVID-19 standard for the sector in the coming months.