Amazon and workers suing the online retailer over COVID-19 infection dangers are sparring in appellate court over whether regulators’ withdrawals of pandemic orders and workplace safety guidance based on the success of vaccinations have rendered moot pending litigation over employers’ alleged failure to comply with those mandates.
Labor unions intend to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order OSHA to expand its healthcare-specific COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) to either all employers or specifically to the meatpacking and food-processing sectors, according to a new court filing.
Incoming OSHA chief Doug Parker could seek to tighten the agency’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) following his expected confirmation, an employer attorney said during a July 22 webinar, based on his record of strict regulation as California’s top safety official and the spike in infections due to the virus’s “Delta” variant.
OSHA is extending the deadline for public comments on its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) from July 21 to Aug. 20, giving stakeholders more time to craft comments that could inform both potential changes to the short-term standard and any permanent rulemaking the agency chooses to craft based on it.
The labor union National Nurses United (NNU) has dropped its court challenge to OSHA’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) without explanation, leaving a challenge by the AFL-CIO and United Food and Commercial Workers International (UFCW) as apparently the only active litigation over the medical-sector rule.
OSHA has published its first handbook for compliance officers to enforce the COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) just as the rule’s first wave of employer mandates are going into effect, with guidelines for both remote and in-person inspections at healthcare facilities as well as criteria for applying the rule’s site-specific exemptions.
Labor unions are suing the Biden OSHA over its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), setting the stage for a ruling on whether regulators and the White House lawfully found that only medical workers face “grave danger” from the pandemic, just as newly released draft materials show officials originally sought an economy-wide ETS.
Employer and industry groups are splitting over the latest revised California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), after the agency relaxed masking and distancing requirements for vaccinated workers -- a move some firms are welcoming while others say the new rule is still too strict and should be repealed.
OSHA will publish its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) in the June 21 Federal Register, making the rule effective for the healthcare sector upon publication, meaning the 14-day compliance deadline for most of its provisions will arrive on July 5.
OSHA plans to propose in December a rule to restore Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates that the Trump administration largely rolled back in 2019, according to its newly released Unified Agenda of regulatory actions that also targets December for proposing a long-delayed infectious-disease standard.