Fines increased to keep pace with inflation

• The U.S. Department of Labor announced changes to Occupational Safety and Health Administration civil penalty amounts based on cost-of-living adjustments for 2024.
• In 2015, Congress passed the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act to advance the effectiveness of civil monetary penalties and to maintain their deterrent effect.
• OSHA’s maximum penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations will increase from $15,625 per violation to $16,131 per violation.
• The maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations will increase from $156,259 per violation to $161,323 per violation.
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New program to help safety in the landscape industry

• OSHA launched a multi-year program to reduce worker fatalities and injuries in the tree and landscape services industries in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• The agency’s new regional emphasis program covers workers and employers in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes two elements.
• The program will provide initial and ongoing outreach to employers, employees, and stakeholders to raise their awareness of the hazards associated with tree trimming and landscape operations.
• OSHA will conduct targeted safety and health inspections of tree trimming and removal, landscaping services, and site preparation contractors to assess employer compliance and reduce employees’ exposure to hazards.
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Washington State joins two other states to protect workers from wildfire smoke

• Washington state became the third state in the U.S. with permanent rules to protect workers from wildfire smoke, a safety hazard that has garnered more attention in the wake of record-breaking forest fires in North America.
• Washington’s rules join similar measures in California and Oregon, where the haze from fires within their borders and in neighboring Canada has become a frequent dry weather worker danger.
• The smoke is known or suspected to cause or exacerbate lung ailments such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
• The permanent rule mitigating smoke exposure took effect on Jan. 15.
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Final rule on worker classification under Fair Labor Standards Act

• The U.S. Department of Labor issued a final rule to help employers and workers better understand when a worker qualifies as an employee and when they may be considered an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
• The rule guides proper classification and seeks to combat employee misclassification, a serious problem that impacts workers’ rights to minimum wage and overtime pay, facilitates wage theft, allows some employers to undercut their law-abiding competition, and hurts the economy at large.
• The new “independent contractor” rule restores the multifactor analysis used by courts for decades, ensuring that all relevant factors are analyzed to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor.
• The rule addresses six factors that guide the analysis of a worker’s relationship with an employer, including any opportunity for profit or loss a worker might have, the financial stake, and the nature of any resources a worker has invested in the work.
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