OSHA is continuing to unveil citations against employers over alleged failures to protect their workers from COVID-19, but labor unions and other Trump administration foes say the small financial penalties the agency is seeking are further evidence that its response to the pandemic has been unacceptably weak.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has recently fined more than a dozen companies a total of over $500,000 for allegedly failing to protect workers from COVID-19, with the bulk being levied on a frozen food manufacturer and the temporary employment firm it uses at more than $200,000 each.
OSHA has issued what appears to be its first citation to an employer for failing to protect workers from COVID-19 infections under the OSH Act’s general duty clause, a provision that attorneys have predicted will be the agency’s main authority for enforcing its array of sector-specific virus guidances during the pandemic.
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.
Attorneys representing employers say OSHA is actively tracking workplaces’ compliance with COVID-19 guides crafted by the agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warning that even though the documents are formally non-binding, employers who ignore them risk an OSHA enforcement action.
Several recent administrative law judge (ALJ) rulings scrapping OSHA citations against the Postal Service (USPS) for exposing mail carriers to excessive heat could end the agency’s longstanding reliance on a National Weather Service (NWS) guide for determining the severity of heat exposures.
OSHA is touting a new decision from an administrative law judge (ALJ) that held a New York flooring maker liable for falsely claiming to have corrected a series of prior workplace violations, calling it a marker for the importance of addressing identified safety hazards following an enforcement action.
OSHA is asking a federal district court to reject a lawsuit that seeks to mandate enforcement action against a Pennsylvania meat-packing plant over fears about inadequate worker protections against COVID-19, arguing that the workers have not met the OSH Act’s “high bar” to override regulators’ enforcement discretion.
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.
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.