California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is floating a draft permanent COVID-19 worker-safety standard that aims to provide more compliance flexibility and streamlined requirements compared with its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), in part by incorporating some core elements of the policy into its existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP).
California lawmakers are advancing several worker-safety bills supported by labor unions and opposed by employer groups ahead of a Sept. 10 deadline to pass legislation, including measures aimed at protecting warehouse employees and speeding new safety rules by exempting them from mandatory cost-impact analyses.
As California struggles to contain record-setting wildfires, state lawmakers appear poised to approve legislation that would require Cal/OSHA to create a “wildfire strike team” it could deploy during dangerous air quality events to investigate agricultural workplaces for compliance with wildfire smoke worker-safety requirements.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is facing competing pressures on how to rework its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) into what is expected to become a permanent rule, including from some of its standards board members and labor unions who want more stringent protections, and from employers seeking more flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.
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.
Oregon’s worker safety agency has issued an emergency heat illness standard in response to June’s record-breaking heat wave, in a possible sign that the regional “heat dome” event already linked to more than 100 deaths in the Beaver State alone could boost OSHA’s newly-announced plans to enact a similar standard nationwide.
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vaccinated workers -- a move some firms are welcoming while others say the new rule is still too strict and should be repealed.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has scrapped its contentious revision to the state’s COVID-19 standards that drew fire from employers and others for what critics said were overly strict masking and distancing requirements, and is proposing a more lenient update that it could adopt as soon as June 17.
Employers and industry groups hope to fast-track further changes to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) after the agency’s regulatory body adopted new requirements in “bizarre” fashion on June 4, drawing charges that the new mandates clash with federal guidance and the state’s reopening plan.
Employer and industry attorneys are criticizing the California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) draft revised COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) as not appropriately relaxed to conform with new physical distancing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ahead of a key June 3 vote by the agency’s standards board.