President-elect Joe Biden’s Department of Labor (DOL) transition team includes several Obama administration veterans along with union figures and California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) chief Doug Parker, bolstering predictions that OSHA will quickly return to Obama-era worker safety rulemaking priorities next year.
September 16, 2026
Unions plan to urge Democratic nominee Joe Biden to quickly strengthen OSHA’s enforcement program if he wins the Nov. 3 presidential election by arguing that it would be the most effective way to boost worker safety, while bracing for “an all-out assault on worker protections” if President Donald Trump wins re-election.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is reportedly pushing to head the Department of Labor (DOL) in a potential Biden administration, a role he could use to implement key provisions of his campaign platform from the Democratic presidential primary including a “workers bill of rights” that aims to improve workplace safety.
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An attorney for labor unions suing over the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) line speed waiver program for swine slaughterhouses says the judge hearing the case appears poised to find that the rule is unlawful, but is giving no indication of whether she would vacate the policy or allow it to stay in force during a remand.
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OSHA is revising its 2010 standards governing the use of cranes and derricks to add a host of exemptions for railroad work, reflecting both a 2014 settlement with the railroad industry and recent rulemakings by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that the agency says preempted its authority in many areas.
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OSHA’s final revisions to beryllium worker exposure standards follow through on the agency’s proposal to “tailor” the rule’s application to the shipyard and construction industries, setting up potential legal battles with health and labor and industry groups that have said various aspects of the proposal lack a legal or scientific basis.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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