Labor and food safety advocates are urging the Agriculture Department’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to drop its proposed rule that seeks to ease regulations and alter inspection procedures at swine processing facilities, charging the measure would increase risk of contamination and worker injuries and is likely unlawful.
The Teamsters union is suing several pharmacy benefit managers, drug manufacturers and distributors over excess use of opioids, alleging they marketed the drugs for chronic pain treatment to treat workplace and other injuries despite their limited long-term effectiveness and addictive qualities, which resulted in increased costs for the union's benefits programs and further worsened workplace safety.
Faced with labor shortages that are preventing many jobs from being filled, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta signaled a “step back” in the Trump administration's strict zero tolerance approach on drug use in the workplace, opening the door to a possible softening in OSHA's plans to roll back an Obama-era rule that precludes company policies, such as drug testing, if they deter injury reporting.
OSHA's review commission is seeking unusual public input on whether and how regulators can address workplace heat stress cases under the agency's general duty clause, as a company is challenging a citation arguing that the Secretary failed to establish that the hazard existed or that the employer could have reasonably recognized such a hazard.
A healthy food group is challenging the safety record of a demonstration facility that is operating under an Agriculture Department (USDA) regulatory waiver program as the agency considers a planned rule that would ease oversight and increase line speeds at swine processing facilities, charging the facility lost “process control,” and found increased contamination and personnel hazards when line speeds increased.
Worker safety groups are renewing their push to kill a Trump administration proposal to allow faster line speeds at swine processing plants, charging that the risk analysis accompanying the proposal is not complete because the agency failed to provide an external peer review as required by the Office of Management and Budget.
Democrats are stepping up efforts to codify Obama-era policies requiring federal agencies to reject contractors that fail to comply with workplace safety and other labor rules on a sector-by-sector basis after President Trump and congressional Republicans rescinded a government-wide executive order (EO) that barred firms with poor safety records from receiving contracts.
Government watchdog groups are pressing Congress to consolidate and strengthen OSHA's authorities governing private sector whistleblowers, citing in part a recent case where a Labor Department (DOL) board found that EPA officials wrongfully fired an agency whistleblower who was entitled to protections.
As they struggle to get OSHA and others to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, Democrats are pushing Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to reinstate an Obama-era ban on federal contractors using forced arbitration proceedings, saying its secret process facilitates harassment.
As reports of sexual harassment dominate public discussion, labor groups and Democrats are stepping up their calls for OSHA and other federal agencies, as well as employers, to do more to prevent such harassment as a workplace safety issue.