Emerging Safety Issues

Democrats and Republicans are taking hard lines on the employer liability waiver in the GOP’s newly unveiled COVID-19 relief bill, posing the risk of a stalemate on the next virus economic relief bill as Democrats say the waiver is a “non-starter” while the GOP counters that it must be included in the legislation.

Workers at a Pennsylvania meat-packing plant are suing OSHA for what they say is the agency’s unlawful failure to respond to complaints of “imminent” danger of COVID-19 infection at the facility, arguing that the OSH Act gives the agency no choice but to quickly inspect the facility or to formally reject the complaint as unwarranted.

A bipartisan group of Midwest and coal state House members is pushing legislation that would force the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to develop new workplace COVID-19 protections for miners, in a sign that the partisan gridlock over broader OSHA standards might not extend to sector-specific policies.

Democratic senators say President Donald Trump is failing to adequately coordinate and fund personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers and other “front-line” employees during the COVID-19 crisis, urging aggressive action to deliver the equipment regardless of any PPE provisions in the next pandemic response bill.

OSHA is citing a health care company over inadequate worker protections for COVID-19 at odds with requirements in its existing respiratory protection standards, in what appears to be the agency’s first major enforcement action against an employer for not implementing sufficient protections against the virus.

A new federal appellate court ruling is building on a prior denial of labor unions’ suit that sought an OSHA emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, rejecting a similar case that applied to the mining industry specifically and further underscoring the importance of lawmakers’ negotiations on an imminent stimulus bill.

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.

Amazon.com employees say a federal district court can hear their suit seeking COVID-19 employee safeguards at a New York warehouse despite OSHA’s general authority over workplace safety, arguing that the agency’s “minimal steps” to address the pandemic give courts more room to act.

Amazon.com is asking a federal district court to reject a suit over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as an infringement on OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction” over workplace safety issues, arguing that allowing lawsuits to enforce state-level coronavirus policies would create “an inconsistent patchwork” of contradictory judicial orders.