The Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) will launch audits of OSHA’s oft-criticized COVID-19 pandemic response oversight program and its efforts to prevent workplace violence in the coming months, according to a newly released audit plan for fiscal year 2025.
The Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (MSHRC) is declining to participate in a pair of D.C. Circuit appeals where both the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and mining companies hope to overturn its decisions that the agency lacks “unfettered” authority to drop already-issued citations in favor of settlement agreements.
OSHA has replaced its long-standing enforcement guidance for poultry facilities with one that covers all animal slaughtering and meat processing sites -- a move it says will tighten its oversight of the sector in order to better target disproportionately high injury and illness rates for workers.
A Missouri agriculture firm is appealing to federal circuit court an enforcement case where it argued OSHA lacks jurisdiction over fall-prevention in train loading -- an argument that an administrative law judge (ALJ) said is at odds with a nearly 30-year-old policy balancing the agency’s authority against that of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is weighing an enforcement appeal about the bar employers must clear to show compliance with OSHA’s machine-guarding standard, including whether they can rely on evidence that their safety practices are in line with “industry custom” -- a claim that an attorney for the agency said at oral argument could “eviscerate the OSH Act” if judges back it.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says OSHA must do more to address musculoskeletal injuries and ergonomic hazards in warehouses and so-called “last-mile” delivery services as the e-commerce industry continues to rapidly expand, though the agency is only agreeing with some of its recommendations.
OSHA chief Douglas Parker says the agency is seeking to adopt “a more strategic approach” to enforcement and compliance assistance for its safety standards on fall prevention and silica dust, including outreach to smaller residential construction projects, while touting a 20 percent year-to-year drop in falling deaths.
A New Jersey steel fabricator is asking a federal district court to declare the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) unconstitutional, aiming to build on new Supreme Court precedent limiting when Congress can allow administrative law judges (ALJs) rather than federal courts to review OSHA and other agencies’ enforcement actions.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is asking the D.C. Circuit to review two enforcement cases where administrative law judges (ALJs) rejected that agency’s claims that it has “unfettered” authority to drop already-issued citations in favor of settlement agreements, teeing up what could be precedent-setting decisions on the scope of its enforcement discretion.
Deputy OSHA chief James Frederick told members of the National Advisory Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) that the agency plans to complete the realignment of its regional offices announced in May by the start of fiscal year 2025 on Oct. 1, amid concerns from both federal officials and panelists over continued impacts of funding cuts on federal and state safety work.