OSHA dealing with environmental challenges

• Climate change is presenting new challenges in daily life and in the workplace with one of those challenges being the growing threat of wildfires.
• Employers must provide a safe and healthful workplace for their employees, said Doug Parker, assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.
• Concerning wildfire smoke hazards, especially on the West Coast, workers, and employers have experience dealing with the issue.
• OSHA is still asking companies to be prepared for future wildfire events by having strategies in place, plans in place, to protect their workers, and have more flexibility about when work can be done.
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Protecting all workers regardless of class 

• The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) urged delegates at a major global conference to commit to ensuring all workers are offered health and safety protection.
• Head of Policy Ruth Wilkinson said its crucial occupational safety and health is elevated as a fundamental human right of every worker.
• The International Labor Organization adopted a safe and healthy working environment as a fundamental principle and right at work at its conference last year. IOSH celebrated it as “the biggest moment for workers’ rights in a quarter of a century.”
• IOSH pledged to make available the accumulated experience and knowledge of the thousands of individual occupational safety and health professionals worldwide whom it represents.
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Texas law overrides heat-related safeguards 

• A law in Texas will soon override labor ordinances statewide that guarantee, among other things, construction workers are given 10-minute breaks to drink water and rest in the shade.
• The law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, will overturn many local laws regulating businesses across Texas, ensuring cities and counties instead follow state codes.
• Proponents say the law makes it easier for companies to sidestep a patchwork of local regulations to get work done. But opponents warn it overturns worker protections in more liberal municipalities that aren’t able to pass in the state legislature, where the GOP has majorities.
• Two other bills would have established a statewide advisory board to set heat illness guidelines for Texas businesses and required mandatory breaks for contractors working for government entities, according to the Texas Tribune.
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Wisconsin beet plant fined for hazardous working conditions

• Federal safety inspectors responded to a Wisconsin employer’s report of an amputation found workers at a Green Bay beef processing plant exposed to multiple hazards, including inadequate guards to protect employees from machines in operation.
• Inspectors with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigating a December 2022 injury at JBS Green Bay Inc. found the worker suffered crushing injuries to his right index and middle fingers while removing a shackle from a cow moving down a trolley line.
• Agency officials also found that JBS failed to ensure that there was adequate guarding in place on the trolley line to protect workers from pinch points.
• OSHA cited JBS Green Bay Inc. for four repeat, four serious, and two other-than-serious violations. Other infractions were related to lockout/tagout, fall and electrical hazards, and hazard communication, and OSHA proposed $227,786 in penalties.
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