State Actions

Employers’ attorneys are highlighting California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) newly released list of its most frequently cited standards in recent enforcement actions -- led by injury and illness prevention plans and outdoor heat exposure programs -- to show how the state agency’s enforcement priorities differ significantly from federal OSHA’s.

California lawmakers have introduced several bills to bolster requirements in the state’s safety standards covering indoor and outdoor heat exposure and crystalline silica exposure in “engineered stone fabrication” businesses and add enforcement heft to the policies, continuing a trend of using legislation to toughen California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) rules.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has approved tough new worker-safety rules for lead exposure in the construction and general industry sectors to take effect next year, codifying a proposal that had already been held up as a potential model for other states and federal OSHA, which is weighing updates to its own lead policies.

Attorneys are urging employers to begin preparing to comply with California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) landmark indoor heat worker-safety rules expected to take effect July 1, saying the agency is likely to make the standards an immediate area of “emphasis” for enforcement despite their complex and lengthy suite of requirements.

In the aftermath of a series of fires at renewable fuel refineries that led to at least one worker suffering critical burns, the United Steelworkers (USW) is petitioning California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to develop an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that would subject those facilities to the same tough worker-safety rules the state applies to petroleum refineries.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is renewing efforts to seek a compromise with federal OSHA over the state’s long-pending, controversial proposal to adopt updated federal fall-protection safety standards for residential frame construction, but federal regulators are expressing doubt over proposed alternatives aimed at easing employer burdens.

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.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is gearing up to consider a long-pending, controversial proposal to adopt updated federal fall-protection safety standards for residential frame construction, amid continued fierce opposition from construction companies, employers and industry groups.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials are revising a key proposal to exempt short-term “incidental” exposures from first-time heat safety rules governing indoor worksites, in response to complaints by employer groups that a previous carve-out was much too limited and ahead of a key standards board vote expected in March.

Jeff Killip is resigning as chief of California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) after less than two years with the agency in order to return to his former home in Washington state, amid a backlog of worker-safety rulemakings and a stubbornly high staff vacancy rate at the Golden State’s worker-safety agency.