The Department of Labor (DOL) is touting a new ruling from an administrative law judge (ALJ) upholding OSHA’s citation against a Florida healthcare center finding managers “exposed workers to more than 50 attacks” from residents, shortly after the House passed a bill to mandate a new workplace violence standard.
OSHA has issued interim enforcement guidance for revisions the Trump administration made last year to the agency’s beryllium standards, detailing procedures to guide compliance officers’ site inspections and citations for alleged violations of the revised policies for general industry worksites, shipyards and construction sites.
OSHA appears to be readying a request for information to inform a first-time update to its 1971 safety standard for mechanical power presses, after the agency first announced that it was planning to rework the policy during the George W. Bush administration but took no concrete steps toward a new version for almost 14 years.
OSHA has sent its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) rule for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review, more than six weeks after President Joe Biden’s deadline for the ETS that observers expect will take effect within weeks and could include tiered mandates for specific industries.
OSHA is extending the comment period on its proposed hazard communication standard (HCS) update, giving industry critics more time to build legal and policy cases against the rule after one attorney said it appears designed to aid EPA chemical evaluations by forcing many chemical companies to conduct elaborate new hazard analyses.
President Joe Biden is proposing $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2022 funding for OSHA and other Department of Labor (DOL) worker protection agencies, representing an increase of $304 million or 17 percent over the FY21 enacted level to ramp up enforcement and regulatory efforts to protect employees.
Unions and worker safety groups are praising President Joe Biden’s selection of California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) chief Doug Parker to lead the federal OSHA and are urging him to swiftly enact a COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), which employers’ attorneys fear Parker could model on Cal/OSHA’s strict virus policy.
OSHA has announced its first whistleblower stakeholder meeting under the Biden administration, giving unions, worker safety groups and others a fresh venue to advance calls for dramatically strengthening the agency’s program that protects employees from retaliations for reporting violations of workplace safety rules.
An industry attorney says chemical makers and users could soon face an “absurd,” onerous mandate to assess the hazards posed by chemicals they produce or use, not only in their own operations but in all possible downstream uses and combinations -- a duty he says could be aimed at supporting EPA’s risk evaluations of existing chemicals.
A federal district judge has scrapped the Trump Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) line-speed waiver for some pork slaughterhouses over its refusal to consider threats to worker safety during the rulemaking process -- a win for unions that said the policy was unlawful -- and is giving the Biden administration 90 days to decide its next steps.