State Actions

Worker-safety advocacy groups and employer representatives continue to clash over proposed amendments to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) workplace violence-prevention standard, including over key definitions, employee representatives’ access to records and training requirements.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is granting a petition to launch a rulemaking to prohibit the fabrication and installation of artificial stone products containing more than 1 percent crystalline silica -- a move to protect workers after hundreds have contracted the deadly lung disease silicosis in recent years and more than 30 have died.

California lawmakers are advancing some bills to bolster Cal/OSHA worker-protection standards and enforcement, while blocking others, including an industry-sponsored measure that would have required Cal/OSHA to develop an application and certification process for artificial stone fabrication shops to help reduce crystalline silica exposure.

An employer advocacy organization is complimenting California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) for proposing to scale back certain provisions of a long-overdue rule to update the agency’s first-aid kit standard for general industry and construction, including over how “readily available” the kits must be and to what extent vehicles are included.

A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit appeared highly skeptical at recent oral argument of South Carolina’s effort to reinstate litigation challenging OSHA’s authority to require states to match annual increases to federal OSH Act penalties, questioning in part whether the state is making new arguments on appeal.

Employer attorneys are finding both beneficial and potentially troublesome changes to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) proposed workplace violence-prevention standard, including narrowing the breadth of certain situations requiring action by employers but expanding compliance obligations for employer-provided transportation.

OSHA is announcing changes to the division of enforcement of workplace safety and health between the federal government and Maryland and Puerto Rico, clarifying that OSHA will cover certain private-sector employment in Maryland and reinstating federal coverage of similar private-sector employment in Puerto Rico.

California lawmakers are advancing a bill to set up a certification program for stone-cutting fabrication shops to help prevent silicosis that is being opposed by worker-safety groups that believe the practice should be banned, as well as a measure aimed at increasing criminal prosecutions of employers when workers are permanently disabled or die.

Virginia has enacted a law requiring the development of a heat illness standard for indoor and outdoor workers by May 2028, joining a growing list of states that have established or are pursuing state-level heat standards amid uncertainty over whether OSHA will finalize a national standard proposed by the Biden administration.

California lawmakers are advancing a labor-backed bill to require a comprehensive academic study of California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) chronic “understaffing” and staff position vacancy rate, which would include recommendations on policies the state could pursue to bolster “career pathways” for such positions.