Top Democrats are urging the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) to audit the department's process for crafting a controversial rule that eases child labor restrictions to allow teenagers working in healthcare to independently operate powered patient lifts, heightening an already contentious workplace safety dispute.
Labor advocates are urging the Trump administration to withdraw a plan to increase line speeds at hog processing plants after a study found “significant limitations” in the data underlying the plan, findings that could also bolster an expected lawsuit from critics who charge the proposal is “arbitrary and capricious” and would increase worker injuries.
Top Democrats and labor advocates are clashing with healthcare industry groups over the Trump administration's proposed rule rolling back child-labor protections to allow teenagers to independently operate powered patient lifts, underscoring the continued controversy the proposal will face as officials work to finalize it next year.
OSHA is proposing to clarify a suite of provisions and definitions in the Obama-era beryllium standard for general industry, including modified definitions for “dermal contact” and a “beryllium work area,” terms that act as thresholds for when employers must provide protective gear.
OSHA and other Labor Department (DOL) officials are agreeing with Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls to bolster a suite of protections to prevent injury and illness among child laborers in agriculture and other sectors, strengthening Democrats' efforts to scrutinize Trump administration plans to ease child-labor rules for teens in the healthcare sector.
White House officials have completed review of an OSHA proposed rule seeking to revise an Obama-era final rule strengthening the agency's beryllium standards in accordance with a settlement with an industry group that calls for clarifying ancillary provisions of the rule's standard for general industry.
In compliance with an appellate court order, EPA is issuing a final rule imposing requirements of the Obama administration's January 2017 final rule strengthening the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program, despite plans to issue early next year a final rule largely scrapping the Obama-era rule.
House Democrats have introduced a bill that would compel OSHA to follow through on an Obama-era commitment to issue an enforceable standard requiring that employers in the healthcare and social services sectors craft plans for preventing workplace violence, arguing that the Trump administration is slow-walking the rule.
Facing a Nov. 10 deadline to act, the Trump OSHA has issued a final rule easing Obama-era certification requirements for crane operators while also issuing interim guidance that seeks to implement the new rule's more-flexible requirements before they take effect in early December.
OSHA and industry petitioners are requesting that a federal appellate court continue to hold in abeyance an industry lawsuit challenging an Obama-era update to the agency's beryllium standards to allow the Trump administration to complete a planned rule rolling back aspects of the standard in accordance with a settlement deal reached this spring.