Michigan’s state workplace safety agency is targeting its COVID-19 enforcement on retail businesses through an “emphasis program” focused primarily on restaurants with grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores as secondary priorities, and applying the state’s existing safety rules rather than issuing a pandemic-specific standard.
Oregon officials say their recently proposed COVID-19 workplace safety standard is largely designed to “formalize and standardize” pandemic employee protection guidance from OSHA and other agencies while adding specific requirements for social distancing, medical removal and infection-control planning.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has set off a flood of whistleblower complaints to OSHA even as the agency’s capacity to handle new complaints has declined, and is urging officials to bolster that capacity through new hiring and administrative measures.
Amazon.com employees are urging a federal district court to reject the company’s arguments that their claims of inadequate COVID-19 protections at a New York City warehouse fall within OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction,” saying their claims that the retailer is violating state laws and pandemic orders are separate from any agency role.
OSHA in a new legal filing is downplaying arguments that employers must scrupulously follow all agency guidance for protecting workers from COVID-19 infections, instead saying the guides set out a “hierarchy of controls” and companies should adopt “a proper mix of protective measures” to avoid OSHA enforcement action.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Mine Health and Safety Administration (MSHA) is defending its decision not to craft an enforceable COVID-19 safety standard to protect mine workers, reinforcing the department’s broad policy of using guidance instead of binding rules to guide employers’ responses to the pandemic.
OSHA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued guidance for food manufacturing and processing companies to protect employees from COVID-19 risks, urging them craft detailed infection control plans among other measures and signaling that employers who refuse could face enforcement action.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has finalized a rule limiting OSHA and other agencies’ use of guidance documents, including setting notice-and-comment requirements for “significant” guides and barring officials from setting binding policy through guidance, creating potential hurdles for OSHA’s COVID-19 guidance strategy.
Industry attorneys say the Senate GOP caucus sees Democrats’ sudden push to block budget and service cuts at the Postal Service as a fresh opportunity to negotiate on the next COVID-19 response bill, circulating a “skinny” relief bill detailing Republicans’ preferred provisions including employer liability waivers.
Workers at a Pennsylvania meat-packing plant say OSHA violated its own inspection procedures when it investigated their claim of an “imminent” danger from COVID-19 exposures at the facility, and the workers say the OSH Act gives the agency no choice but to take enforcement action including a new surprise inspection.