The Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), which advocates for strict public health and environment rules, is urging OSHA to craft new standards to protect workers from hazards they face when responding to disasters such as hurricanes, including new protections from ergonomic risks and heat stress, and greater enforcement during disaster responses.
Democratic lawmakers and public interest groups are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to scrap a recently announced policy allowing poultry plants to seek waivers from existing line speed limits, arguing the plan undermines USDA's denial of an industry request for broader waivers, and jeopardizes worker safety.
A group of 47 Democrats is concerned that a Labor Department (DOL) proposal to weaken rules prohibiting minors from working in certain hazardous operations has not been adequately reviewed for potential safety risks to teen workers, writing in a recent letter that they are unaware of any formal NIOSH review of the underlying data informing the plan.
In a new final agenda for construction safety research, a coalition convened by NIOSH is backing labor groups' calls for prioritizing research on protecting workers from falls and during natural or man-made disasters, while also softening past criticism of OSHA's lockout/tagout standard, which the Obama OSHA sought to revise, despite industry opposition.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced legislation seeking to improve reporting on the scope of harassment in the workplace, data that could aid policy development just as labor groups have urged OSHA to take up the issue as a safety concern.
Former OSHA officials and a coalition of over 100 labor groups are formally petitioning OSHA to craft a federal standard protecting workers from exposure to excessive heat, though one former official says that imminent Democratic legislation requiring such a standard is likely the most feasible path forward under the Trump administration.
In response to the growing concerns about sexual harassment in the workplace, labor groups are launching a network aimed at mobilizing grassroots efforts to push for stronger regional OSHA enforcement over especially vulnerable workers in sectors such as healthcare, house keeping and farming, just as OSHA begins considering the issue.
The House has unanimously approved a bill that would create an advisory committee to provide recommendations to the Labor Department (DOL) on ways to limit the impact of opioids on workplace safety, though in a nod to GOP fears about new regulations, the panel's jurisdiction is limited to providing “informational resources and best practices.”
As House Republicans prepare for a possible floor debate on immigration legislation, Democrats and labor unions are stepping up their efforts to bolster workplace safety for migrant workers, building on an issue that has created a rift in the GOP which has grown deeper in the face of the Trump administration's strict limits on immigration.
Officials in the Agriculture Department’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are defending its proposed swine slaughter rule from Democrats' and labor groups' charges that the measure's plan to increase line speeds and ease inspections jeopardizes workers' safety in an already high-risk industry.