Employer groups are sharply attacking OSHA’s first substantive defense of its controversial rule allowing “third-party” employee representatives to take part in inspection walkarounds, arguing that the agency is refusing to acknowledge likely harms from the new policy while adopting a “baffling” reading of the OSH Act.
OSHA is seeking to dismiss South Carolina’s suit challenging an Obama-era rule directing states to match federal OSH Act penalty levels, renewing its charge that the state missed a statutory deadline and that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling easing some statutes of limitations has no bearing on this case because it could have sued at any time in that window.
Top Democrats on the House workforce committee are calling on OSHA to investigate recent reports that claim officials with California and South Carolina’s state plan agencies have been “tipping off” employers on upcoming agency inspections targeting not only safety issues but child-labor violations and potential trafficking.
Two employer attorneys say an administrative law judge’s (ALJ) recent decision partly scrapping an OSHA citation based on whether a worker killed in a 2020 accident had been standing in a recognized “danger zone” underlines the burden the agency faces to show specific evidence of industry practice to support such claims.
United Airlines is asking the 7th Circuit to review an OSHA enforcement case where it has argued that its agreements with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its staff union limit its duty to implement certain hazard-prevention requirements under the OSH Act -- a claim an administrative law judge (ALJ) rejected earlier this year.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is beginning a rulemaking process to toughen its enforcement policies by creating new citations for “enterprise-wide” and “egregious” violations, and substantially hiking potential monetary penalties on companies -- steps mandated by a 2021 state law but which the agency is only now preparing to implement.
OSHA is asking a federal district court to dismiss employer and trade associations’ challenge to its controversial rule allowing employee representatives to participate in enforcement “walkarounds” outside of their own work sites, arguing that the plaintiffs have shown no concrete harm from the new policy in addition to defending its legality.
South Carolina is preparing to resume its challenge to OSHA’s mandate for state plans to match federal OSH Act penalty levels, after the Supreme Court eased the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) six-year deadline for suits against the federal government that the agency previously touted in a bid to dismiss the case.
A broad coalition of employers is arguing that OSHA’s rule allowing employee representatives to participate in enforcement “walkarounds” outside of their own work sites violates multiple statutes and Constitutional doctrines, in their first formal bid for a federal court to overturn the policy.
OSHA and Dollar General have agreed to settle a years-long enforcement suit over claims of widespread unsafe conditions such as faulty emergency exits at the discount retail chain, including a $12 million monetary penalty and commitments from the company to improve worker protections across its stores.