OSHA is asking a federal district court to dismiss South Carolina’s latest challenge to the agency’s yet-unenforced requirement for states to raise their maximum penalties for workplace health and safety violations to match federal levels, saying the case was filed too late and fails to show any harm from the policy, among other flaws.
Groups representing employers, industries, labor unions and worker-safety advocates are gearing up for what are expected to be highly contentious deliberations by California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) on its proposed first-time worker-safety rules for heat illness prevention at indoor worksites -- an effort that could also help shape standards at the federal level.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is divided over a pending proposal to substantially strengthen worker-safety rules for lead exposure in the construction sector and general industry, with several members agreeing with employers that the draft standard should be slowed and scaled back and others arguing it is far overdue.
An employer attorney says Amazon’s challenge to Washington State’s requirement for firms to abate alleged safety violations before administrative review of their citations is “ripe for an appeal” after a federal district court rejected the suit, holding out hope that further litigation could scrap the policy, though he warned that the retailer’s own arguments undercut its claims.
California lawmakers are advancing a controversial bill to require California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to expeditiously require workplace violence-prevention measures in employers’ existing employee-safety plans, with supporters saying that while the agency is already working on such rules for non-healthcare facilities it is taking too long to finalize them.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials have released first-time proposed worker-safety rules for heat illness prevention at indoor worksites, a move expected to spark intense debate between labor groups and employers ahead of a meeting of the agency’s standards board in May.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has narrowly rejected setting up a process to amend its workforce-safety rules for farming equipment to allow automated tractors and other machines to operate independently in the field, with several panel members arguing that more research data is needed before the agency begins investigating a rule.
OSHA has granted final approval to Maine’s application to administer workplace health and safety standards as they apply to state and local government employees, after the state completed a last round of revisions for the OSH Act state plan that it first submitted a decade ago.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is issuing 18 citations to a medical device sterilization company for allegedly failing to protect its employees from overexposure to the toxic solvent ethylene oxide (EtO), amid a growing battle over EPA-crafted risk levels for the carcinogen that industry has argued are unreasonably strict.
South Carolina is again challenging OSHA’s mandate for states to match federal minimum and maximum penalties for OSH Act violations, targeting the 2016 federal rule that first announced the policy after a federal court rejected its earlier suit that focused on language restating the mandate in the agency’s annual rules adjusting penalties for inflation.