California lawmakers are advancing a narrowed, labor-backed bill to bar employers from relying on automated decision-making systems (ADS) to make certain employment decisions -- including those aimed at aiding worker safety -- without human oversight, despite ongoing opposition by employer and tech organizations.
As the Trump administration prepares to hear stakeholder views on a Biden-era OSHA rule setting heat-protection standards, groups in California are weighing a Cal/OSHA plan to strengthen the state’s heat illness-prevention standards as required by a 2022 law, which was prompted by fears of the potential impacts of hotter temperatures caused by climate change.
California lawmakers are advancing bills to ban employers from preventing workers from wearing masks or respirators, place new restrictions and certification requirements on stone fabrication shops to protect workers from crystalline silica, and require an academic study and new advisory panel on understaffing and vacancies at Cal/OSHA.
Employer attorneys are generally praising recently published guidance documents by New York’s Department of Labor (NYDOL) for companies to comply with the state’s new retail worker violence-prevention rules, but some say questions remain over several key provisions including training requirements related to active-shooter drills.
Employer attorneys are seeing mixed results in key revisions to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) draft workplace violence-prevention rules, welcoming the removal of language barring employers from requiring employees to confront individuals suspected of committing a crime while criticizing an updated definition of “workplace violence hazards.”
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is weighing a petition from construction industry groups to delay by one year the July 1 effective date of controversial regulatory amendments to the state’s fall-protection standard for residential construction workers that aim to meet federal OSHA’s requirements.
Attorneys are urging companies to ensure they have up-to-date heat safety programs ahead of high summer temperatures, noting OSHA’s continued focus on heat-related hazards through its National Emphasis Program (NEP) even in the absence of a federal standard and a growing number of states with heat safety standards.
Aiming to provide more compliance clarity for the construction industry, California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is laying out new guidance for employers to comply with tougher lead exposure-prevention worker-safety rules that took effect Jan. 1, specifically applying to employees conducting dry abrasive blasting.
California lawmakers continue to advance worker safety-related bills, including a measure to prohibit employers from preventing workers from wearing masks or respirators if it is safe, and another to bar employers from relying on automated decision-making systems (ADS) to make a variety of employment decisions without human oversight.
California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is proposing the formation of a special panel to recommend actions to help fill voids in worker safety that may be created by the Trump administration’s near-elimination of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), including certifying personal protective equipment (PPE).