Virginia has approved its first-in-the-nation workplace standard for COVID-19 protections in a marker for other states weighing similar rules in response to OSHA’s refusal to craft a nationwide policy, even as congressional Democrats are renewing their push to force the agency to pursue a rulemaking in the next stimulus bill.
House appropriators have released a report on their fiscal year 2021 OSHA funding bill that seeks to boost the agency’s enforcement budget by $10 million while calling for the agency to issue both a worker protection standard for COVID-19 and its workplace violence standard for health care, though it stops short of legally mandating either rule.
House Democrats’ fiscal year 2021 funding bill for the Department of Labor would boost OSHA’s budget by $12 million from current levels, rejecting President Donald Trump’s requested cuts while maintaining a training grant program that the administration is seeking to end despite OSHA touting the grants as “success stories.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is voicing support for another COVID-19 stimulus measure in response to the nationwide rise in infections, teeing up a battle over employer liability waivers that he says will be a GOP requirement in any pandemic bill but which Democrats and labor groups have opposed just as strongly.
The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), a think tank that advocates for “robust” health and safety rules, is floating an aggressive agenda for federal agencies and Congress to protect workers from COVID-19, including issuance of an emergency OSHA standard to prevent infections that the agency is refusing to issue.
Chemical industry groups and other sectors are looking to Congress to reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) chemical facility safety program before its looming July 23 expiration, although one industry source says it is unlikely that a reauthorization bill would include any proposed policy revisions to the program.
Democrats and pro-regulatory group Public Citizen are opposing Republicans’ push to waive liability for employers whose workers contract COVID-19 on the job, signaling what could be an intense political battle ahead as the Senate GOP has said the waivers will be a top priority for any future COVID-19 relief bill.
Congressional Democrats are backing a federal lawsuit by Amazon employees alleging that the online retailer failed to protect workers at a New York City warehouse from COVID-19 infections, setting up a test of companies’ duty to follow state safety mandates during the pandemic after OSHA declined to issue an emergency standard.
OSHA’s newly issued alert outlining steps employers can take to encourage social distancing in the workplace, including maintaining space between workers and isolating sick employees, could preview the agency’s forthcoming guidance for how businesses can safely reopen under loosened state pandemic orders.
Lawmakers at a May 28 House hearing on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response sparred over whether OSHA needs to craft an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for protecting workers from infections, previewing arguments that could arise in labor unions’ pending lawsuit to force issuance of an ETS.