A federal appeals court has overturned a 2020 Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that took a narrow reading of OSHA’s safety standard for goods “stored in tiers,” holding that Walmart violated the rule in a 2017 accident even though the items in question were held in shelves rather than stacked directly atop one another.
OSHA is asking a federal district court to reject South Carolina’s suit that would block the agency’s years-old requirement for states to match its annual increases to maximum OSH Act penalties, saying that the Palmetto State’s claims are both legally flawed and premature because it has made no formal move to enforce the rule.
OSHA has unveiled a new version of its “Severe Violator Enforcement Program” (SVEP) targeting employers that “willfully or repeatedly” violate safety standards or refuse to correct violations, broadening a key part of the program to cover all rules rather than only “high emphasis hazards” in a move employer attorneys say could expand its reach “exponentially.”
Top OSHA officials told advisory panels this week that the agency is poised to advance several long-awaited rules on heat illness, protective gear and more after it completes its permanent COVID-19 safety standard for the healthcare sector, saying the staffing demands of that project have sidelined even major priorities for the Biden administration.
The discount retail chain Dollar General is telling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit it will oppose OSHA’s bid to have the court enforce an “informal settlement agreement” the two sides negotiated over a $145,000 citation for allegedly unsafe conditions at an Ohio store.
Federal judges considering a rare suit under the OSH Act provision allowing workers to sue OSHA for failing to take action over an “imminent danger” raised doubts at oral argument on whether they can still provide any relief to the plaintiffs more than two years into the case, among an array of other questions on the results both sides are seeking in the appeal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit is set to hear oral argument next week in a suit brought by workers at a Pennsylvania meat plant challenging the Trump OSHA’s refusal to take enforcement action over what they say was an “imminent danger” of COVID-19 infection at their workplace, in a test of one of the OSH Act’s few private rights of action.
Two Universal Health Services (UHS) subsidiaries are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to reverse an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) decision that they say created a “near-boundless” test for when multiple companies can be considered a joint employer under the OSH Act.
OSHA finalized a “complete overhaul” of its handbook for investigating whistleblower retaliation complaints, incorporating a long list of previously separate guidance into the core manual and setting new procedural requirements for various steps of the process, triggering a mandate for state plans to adopt their own version of the new document.
OSHA is seeking a massive $1.2 million penalty from the discount retail chain Family Dollar over alleged violations at two Ohio stores that the agency says are the latest in “a long and disturbing history” of similar safety hazards at the company’s facilities, underscoring the Biden administration’s efforts to step up the agency’s enforcement program.