Disagreement over new healthcare guidelines

• Occupational safety experts are concerned about the safety of health workers if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adopts its advisory committee’s recommendations on infection control guidelines in healthcare settings.
• The sides are arguing about the use of N95 masks and other protective measures. T
• The CDC’s advisory committee has proposed a lesser degree of protection for health workers, which has been strongly contested by state OSHA officials.
• CDC advisory committee’s guidance. The committee is considering updating infection control rules, with a draft proposal recommending masks without specifying N95s for ‘endemic’ respiratory viruses.
• This has raised concerns about the potential impact on fed-OSHA’s capability to enforce these guidelines due to staffing shortages and a higher workload.
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Lawsuit filed against state OSHA

• A North Carolina company filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Administration of improperly incentivizing its investigators to cite companies subject to safety inspections.
• The lawsuit followed a fire at the employer’s facility that resulted in two employee deaths and $112,000 in penalties.
• The company alleged that NCOSHA investigators’ performance evaluations are based in part on the number and severity of citations they recommend, in violation of the federal OSHA Act.
•  If the claim is dismissed and not reinstated on appeal, this would signify the end to a fairly unusual facial challenge to the way NCOSHA evaluates its inspection personnel.
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Judge to decide whether testing equipment can lead to OSHA violation

• A utility contractor allegedly failed to properly test bolts on machinery, which led to a worker’s death.
• Fed-OSHA cited Henkels & McCoy Inc. in the fatal accident in Jacksonville, Fla., after the agency found that a truck with a boom attachment often used to remove and install utility poles involved in the incident hadn’t been fully tested in at least a decade.
• The company is now appealing the OSHA citations in a federal appeals court.
• The question is whether the company violated the general duty clause by not testing the bolts.
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New rules will protect workers from wildfire smoke

• New rules will take effect in Washington to protect workers from wildfire smoke.
• The new regulations, which will be implemented in January, will make Washington the third state to implement year-round wildfire smoke protections for people who work outdoors.
• Wildfire smoke events have continued to happen in Washington state over the last five years and are consistent throughout the state each summer, said Ryan Allen, the standards, technical, and lab services senior program manager for Washington OSHA.
• In January the department will be enforcing year-round workplace protections against wildfire smoke for people who work in these jobs, something called for three years ago by the public.
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