The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is beginning an audit of OSHA’s response to a rise in “severe” worker injuries at retailers’ warehouse facilities that the watchdog says is a “consequence” of the COVID-19 pandemic, following months of claims by labor groups that the facilities have failed to provide accident protections.
A new decision by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) holds for apparently the first time that road construction companies must adopt fall-protection measures for employees working from the backs of moving vehicles, but the panel took no clear position on what abatement methods the employers must use.
OSHA is pushing back two major deadlines for public input until early 2022 -- extending both the public comment period for its call for comments to inform a long-awaited heat illness standard, and the nomination deadline for new members to its Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH).
Two OSHA-related nominees won key Senate votes Dec. 2, as lawmakers voted to confirm Larry Turner as the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new Inspector General (IG) just hours after members of the labor committee backed Susan Harthill’s nomination to join the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) will review a case that could set a new precedent for how it deals with situations where an employer “disregards” deadlines to participate in an appeal, while the Senate labor committee is poised to vote on President Joe Biden’s nominee to the panel as soon as Dec. 2.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) says workplace safety and health ranks as one of the department’s top “management challenges,” citing a decline in OSHA enforcement, mounting whistleblower investigations, and silica protections as key subjects where the agency must improve.
A Labor Department (DOL) official told a Nov. 16 advisory panel meeting that OSHA is on track to publish its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for heat danger enforcement by “late March” 2022, ahead of the next round of summer heat and in line with an administration-wide push to combat heat illness.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has designated three cases for review by the full body, setting the stage for new decisions on how OSHA enforces its fall protection standard along with a host of general duty clause guidelines, even as President Joe Biden’s nominee to an open seat on the panel remains pending.
Stakeholders on all sides say Democrats’ proposal to raise the OSH Act’s cap on penalties to $700,000 per violation would reshape OSHA enforcement, with labor and safety groups praising the bill as a much-needed boost to deterrence while employers’ attorneys are predicting a “big” increase in legal challenges to individual fines.
Just-released legislative text that House Democratic leaders say implements a deal between President Joe Biden and Senate moderates for a $1.75 trillion social spending package maintains the previously announced proposal to raise statutory penalties for OSH Act violations by a factor of 10, along with $707 million in funding for OSHA itself.