New Labor Secretary Sets OSHA Leadership

Recently confirmed Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer on Thursday formalized the senior Trump Administration’s appointees, including those leading OSHA.
Amanda Wood Laihow will serve as the deputy assistant secretary for OSHA. Most recently, she served as a commissioner to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission during the first Trump Administration.
Wood Laihow was the director of labor and employment policy for the National Association of Manufacturers and served as deputy general counsel on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and as an assistant general counsel at the U.S. General Services Administration.
Michael Asplen will serve as OSHA’s senior policy advisor. He previously served as chief counsel to Commissioner Laihow at the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Before that, he was a counsel at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, managed Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute, and was a policy associate at the National Association of Manufacturers.
Jihun Han will serve as Department of Labor’s chief of staff. He was Secretary Chavez-DeRemer’s chief of staff during her tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives and ran her successful congressional bid in 2022.
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While it remains unclear whether there will be workplace violence regulation at the federal level under the Trump administration, states are already mulling new bills to address workplace safety or expand existing regulations, particularly in the healthcare industry, according to lawyers at Ogletree Deakins.
In a review of pending or planned state-level legislation, new workplace violence bills could create new compliance obligations for employers, such as requiring employers to develop workplace violence prevention plans, conduct risk assessments, and track and report incidents of workplace violence.
Specific legislative proposals, such as Alaska’s SB 49 and Massachusetts’s HD.1856, require employers to implement risk assessments, create violence prevention plans, and provide training to protect employees from workplace violence.
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Exxon Mobil has asked a federal appeals court to narrow the definition of which medical professionals can diagnose mental-health illnesses as part of its dispute of a recordkeeping citation.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission determined the energy producer violated a recordkeeping standard by not documenting a worker’s mental illness diagnosis from a healthcare professional following an explosion at its facility.
Employers aren’t required under section 1904.5(b)(2) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act to record mental illness as a work-related injury unless the employee voluntarily provides the company with an opinion from a physician or other licensed healthcare professional.
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