State Actions

Worker-safety advocacy groups are elevating their press on California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials to advance an indoor heat protection rule for prisoners and jail staff, as the national debate over heat standards becomes more focused on states due to the incoming Trump administration’s likely deprioritization of national heat standards.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has adopted final, permanent standards to protect fabricated stone workers from exposure to crystalline silica despite continuing pushback from industry leaders, who claim that dozens of onerous new requirements and likely uneven enforcement will penalize businesses that are adequately protecting employees.

The California Legislature is weighing a bill that would impose new restrictions and certification requirements for stone fabrication shops to protect workers from being exposed to crystalline silica, in the latest step of a years-long push to stem a rise in the deadly disease silicosis in the Golden State and elsewhere.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is touting what it says is the state’s first citation for a “willful” violation of outdoor heat safety standards, targeting a landscape maintenance company with a fine of more than $276,000 and underscoring the agency’s renewed commitment to bolster enforcement efforts.

Employer-focused attorneys are saying they expect California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) inspectors to focus primarily on “enterprise-wide” and less on “egregious” violations as part of an agency initiative to toughen enforcement policies by establishing those new categories of citations as required by a 2021 state law.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is launching an advisory committee that will weigh amending state safety rules to eventually allow deployment of certain types of autonomous agricultural equipment, amid continued pushback from labor advocacy groups.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) and state prison officials plan to propose indoor heat safety rules specific to correctional institutions, after the state exempted those facilities from its first-time heat standards covering all other employers shortly before they took effect in July.

The fabricated stone manufacturing industry is making final pleas for California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to scale back its proposed final permanent rules to protect workers from exposure to crystalline silica, warning that dozens of onerous new requirements and poor enforcement will penalize businesses that are adequately protecting employees.

Labor unions are urging California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) and its standards board to thoroughly consider potential dangers workers could face from increased use of autonomous vehicles (AVs), including through an advisory committee agency staff have proposed to help craft what would be a first-time rule for autonomous tractors in the agriculture sector.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a pair of bills aimed at expanding worker safety at refineries and hospitals, as well as legislation requiring workplace first-aid kits to contain the opioid overdose medication naloxone hydrochloride.