Several key worker-safety bills in the California Legislature are advancing for imminent floor votes, while others -- including one that would have required a study on Cal/OSHA’s chronic staff-vacancy problems -- have stalled for the year.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is contemplating new actions to reduce worker exposure to crystalline silica in the stone-fabrication sector -- in response to alarming increases in cases of silicosis, and deaths from the disease -- including stronger enforcement of safety rules and support for legislation requiring criminal charges against negligent shop owners.
Cal/OSHA is announcing monetary and other penalties against a food-production company in the San Joaquin Valley following the employer’s guilty plea on two misdemeanor counts after being criminally charged in connection with the 2020 deaths of two workers who were exposed to nitrogen gas at the company’s plant.
Worker-safety advocacy organizations are warning members of California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board that employees in the state -- especially agricultural laborers -- are likely to suffer from increased injuries and illnesses as a result of raids on employer operations by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
The California State Auditor is finding major problems and deficiencies with the state OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) inspection and enforcement efforts, including closing complaints and accident reports without conducting on-site inspections, carrying out inadequate inspections, failing to ensure problems are fixed, and assessing inadequate fines.
A federal district court judge has rejected for the second time South Carolina’s attempt to prevent OSHA from requiring states to match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, agreeing with the agency that the state failed to provide a viable claim and that some claims were time-barred.
Employer-focused attorneys are ramping up warnings about the potential impacts to companies that will be required to comply with California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) legislatively mandated expansion of workplace violence-prevention rules, a draft of which is being scrutinized ahead of a July 14 comment period deadline.
Industry and employer groups are charging that California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials are exceeding the requirements of a 2022 state law in proposing changes to the agency’s indoor and outdoor heat illness-prevention rules, including by tightening certain thresholds for when employers must take special actions to protect employees.
South Carolina is asking a federal district court to grant its motion for summary judgment in a long-running challenge to an Obama-era rule requiring states to match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, while acknowledging that OSHA’s bid to dismiss the case is still pending.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is alerting businesses that for the first time, domestic workers employed by companies in California, such as housecleaners, caregivers and gardeners, will be covered by state workplace safety and health laws effective July 1.