A new survey conducted by the National Safety Council (NSC) has found a strong connection between Long COVID symptoms and workplace injuries, prompting the organization to outline ways of mitigating the risks associated with the condition that can increase harms to workers.
Labor unions are opposing OSHA’s plan to eliminate the COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), pointing to the continued need for data transparency, although various unions differ on whether the agency should address their concerns through a permanent COVID-19 standard or a broader infectious disease standard.
OSHA is seeking to renew an information collection request (ICR) related to COVID-19 reporting and recordkeeping requirements for healthcare employees to ensure compliance with Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) mandates even as the agency has stopped enforcing the requirements and plans to withdraw them through a rulemaking.
Representatives of several community and employee-safety organizations are pressing California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to bolster standards and enforcement of rules to protect dairy and poultry workers from the bird flu strains that are spreading in the state.
OSHA is dropping its plan to develop a final rule on occupational exposure to COVID-19 in healthcare setting, noting the lack of a public health emergency and saying any ongoing risk would be better addressed by a rulemaking addressing infectious diseases more broadly.
After almost a decade of delay, OSHA has sent its proposed infectious disease standard for health care facilities and other “high-risk” environments to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review, teeing up its release just ahead of the transition to President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration.
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.
California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would require schools to exclude teachers and other employees with COVID-19 from the workplace with pay for a set period of time, amid opposition from state health officials who argue that such mandates should be based on their frequently updated pandemic guidance rather than rigid statutory mandates.
California’s public-health authority has eased its guidance on when COVID-19 is likely to be contagious, greatly loosening the state OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) requirement for employers to isolate workers with confirmed infections and likely also easing other elements of its permanent safety rules for the coronavirus, experts say.
OSHA’s latest regulatory agenda says it intends to advance several long-promised rules in either the final days of 2023 or early 2024, including updated safety standards for powered industrial trucks and elevated walking surfaces, even higher-profile rulemakings such as those for heat danger, workplace violence and infectious diseases remain on uncertain timelines.