OSHA is back on track with investigations
- OSHA should have completed 31,400 inspections by the end of 2022, meeting the agency’s fiscal year goal.
- It was challenging to complete these investigations over the past two years because of COVID and its repercussions.
- The Biden administration has prioritized increased enforcement by OSHA and lawmakers have funded more than 85 new jobs as inspectors with the agency.
- Inspections of construction sites are the most scrutinized and currently account for about 50% of the 2022 inspections.
Whistleblower complaints are being updated
- OSHA revised its Whistleblower Investigations Manual, which supersedes the January 2016 version and is the first complete overhaul since 2011.
- Key changes in the manual include incorporating past policy memoranda and procedures piloted by OSHA field offices.
- The agency is clarifying and streamlining procedures that lacked sufficient guidance or were unclear in the 2016 version and statute-specific chapters were removed and converted into statute-specific desk aids.
- “We are working to improve our whistleblower program to help ensure workers have a voice on the job free of retaliation,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Doug Parker said.
Head Start can override mask and vaccine requirements
- A federal judge shot down a vaccine and mask mandate by the Biden administration for Head Start, a federal program that pays for preschool for low-income families.
- The Biden administration issued a requirement that all teachers and staff involved in the program get a COVID-19 vaccine.
- The government also established a mask mandate, which covers all indoor situations and outdoor situations for all children involved in the program who are older than two.
- “The liberty interests of individuals mandated to take the COVID-19 vaccine outweigh any interest generated by the mandatory administration of vaccines,” wrote Judge Terry Doughty.
Bill would protect workers from climate hazards
- U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (Missouri) introduced two pieces of legislation to protect worker health and safety by developing worker safety standards in the event of climate disasters and extreme weather.
- The Worker Safety in Climate Disasters Act would prevent workers from being fired for seeking shelter during disasters and offer paid time off for workers affected by those disasters.
- The Wind Safety Standard Act would require OSHA to create a Wind Safety Standard modeled after the Heat Safety Standard to protect workers put in danger in the workplace by high wind conditions.
- The legislation comes in response to the deaths of six workers at an Amazon facility in Edwardsville, Ill.