The Senate has rejected Republicans’ “skinny” COVID-19 relief bill along party lines with Democrats decrying an employer liability waiver against OSHA enforcement as one of many “poison pills” that doomed the proposal, casting doubt on whether Congress will be able to approve any further virus-related relief bill this year.
The pro-regulatory group Public Citizen is suing the Department of Labor (DOL) seeking release of records from the development of OSHA’s enforcement memo that promised not to take legal action against meat and poultry plants that make “good-faith” efforts to comply with federal COVID-19 workplace safety guidance.
Several states are starting to use the threat of enforcement to implement non-binding COVID-19 workplace safety measures including guidance documents issued by OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), says an attorney who sees the efforts as a move by the states to enforcing voluntary safety steps.
California lawmakers have approved a controversial labor-backed bill to create an extensive list of notices that employers would have to provide to employees and others if a worker is exposed to COVID-19 and would authorize the state’s OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to shut down facilities if they are an “imminent hazard” to workers due to the virus.
Michigan’s state workplace safety agency is targeting its COVID-19 enforcement on retail businesses through an “emphasis program” focused primarily on restaurants with grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores as secondary priorities, and applying the state’s existing safety rules rather than issuing a pandemic-specific standard.
Oregon officials say their recently proposed COVID-19 workplace safety standard is largely designed to “formalize and standardize” pandemic employee protection guidance from OSHA and other agencies while adding specific requirements for social distancing, medical removal and infection-control planning.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has set off a flood of whistleblower complaints to OSHA even as the agency’s capacity to handle new complaints has declined, and is urging officials to bolster that capacity through new hiring and administrative measures.
Amazon.com employees are urging a federal district court to reject the company’s arguments that their claims of inadequate COVID-19 protections at a New York City warehouse fall within OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction,” saying their claims that the retailer is violating state laws and pandemic orders are separate from any agency role.
OSHA in a new legal filing is downplaying arguments that employers must scrupulously follow all agency guidance for protecting workers from COVID-19 infections, instead saying the guides set out a “hierarchy of controls” and companies should adopt “a proper mix of protective measures” to avoid OSHA enforcement action.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Mine Health and Safety Administration (MSHA) is defending its decision not to craft an enforceable COVID-19 safety standard to protect mine workers, reinforcing the department’s broad policy of using guidance instead of binding rules to guide employers’ responses to the pandemic.