Meat and farming industry groups are backing the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its legal defense of a program that allows hog slaughterhouses to increase their line speeds above regulatory maximum limits, arguing that despite unions’ claims there is no proof that higher speeds will endanger workers.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has finalized a rule limiting OSHA and other agencies’ use of guidance documents, including setting notice-and-comment requirements for “significant” guides and barring officials from setting binding policy through guidance, creating potential hurdles for OSHA’s COVID-19 guidance strategy.
Labor unions and the group Public Citizen are asking a federal district court to scrap the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) program that allows poultry slaughterhouses to raise their line speeds above regulatory maximums, saying it violates a 2014 rule for the sector that the Trump administration never withdrew or amended.
Employer representatives are objecting to differences between California OSHA’s requirements for companies to record and report COVID-19 cases among employees and federal OSHA requirements, and urging the state to align its rules more closely with OSHA -- but California appears to be broadly rejecting the request.
A federal district judge is refusing a request from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to halt litigation over its rule allowing higher line speeds at swine slaughterhouses so the agency can reconsider the policy, backing unions who have argued that the rule jeopardizes worker safety and should be scrapped entirely.
Labor unions say the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) rule allowing swine slaughterhouses to raise line-speed limits regardless of worker safety impacts must be vacated, citing a recent Supreme Court decision they say shows that the agency’s refusal to consider safety data in the rulemaking is too fundamental a flaw to fix on remand.
OSHA’s newly updated Unified Agenda of pending rulemaking actions adds only a few new items to its docket while delaying a host of previously planned proposals and final rules to summer or later, sparking fresh criticism from safety advocates who say the agency has slowed its regulatory work to a crawl.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is fighting labor unions’ argument that an Inspector General critique of USDA worker safety data undermines its contested rule allowing some slaughterhouses to increase line speeds, countering that the “preliminary” data has “no bearing on the validity of the Final Rule.”
Industry attorneys are largely welcoming a long-awaited IRS plan allowing companies to deduct from their federal taxes fines and penalties paid to the government under consent decrees, such as those resolving health, safety, and environmental enforcement actions.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking remand from a federal district court to reconsider its rule allowing higher line speeds at some swine slaughterhouses after a judge faulted its consideration of worker safety risks, but labor groups challenging the policy oppose the reconsideration and say it would be a sham.