Employment Law Observer

In the spirit of the season, we are using our annual "12 Days of California Labor and Employment" blog series to address new California laws and their impact on employers. On the sixth day of the holidays, my labor and employment attorney gave to me six geese a-laying and AB 2975, AB 1976, and SB 1350.

On March 29, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a final rule (Final Rule) amending regulations for workplace investigations. It clarifies that employees may authorize both employees and a non-exhaustive list of third-party non-employees to act as their representative and accompany OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officers (CSHO) during physical workplace inspections.

On November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). It required employers of 100 or more employees to institute mandates requiring employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19—or require weekly testing of its employees. That same day, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) similarly issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) requiring the workforces of Medicare- and Medicaid-certified providers and suppliers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order for Medicare and Medicaid facilities to continue participation in those programs. Many employers have also instituted COVID-19 vaccination mandates for their employees separate from OSHA’s ETS and CMS’s IFR.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, employers have had to keep abreast of evolving or incomplete government guidance, all while trying to discern for themselves the most prudent way to handle employee leaves, pay, workload, and safety.

In a workplace safety whistleblower lawsuit recently filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, an air conditioning technician claims he was fired by his employer, HT Airsystems of Florida, LLC, in retaliation for complaining about purported overtime violations and for raising concerns about a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), which would be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and Florida's Private Whistleblower Act (FWA).

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a new poster—available in English or Spanish—which lists steps workplaces can take to reduce their risks of coronavirus exposure. This release is the latest effort by OSHA to educate and protect America's workers and employers during the pandemic. We outline their recommended infection prevention measures highlighted in the poster below.

OSHA had an active 2017. Now that we have rung in the new year, let's talk about how those changes are impacting employers in 2018.

In the ongoing series of updates on the status of OSHA's electronic reporting, we have another development. 

As reported by the Employment Law Observer in June, OSHA has formally proposed to delay the July 1, 2017 deadline for electronic injury and illness reporting to December 1, 2017. Since announcing the delay, OSHA formally launched the Injury Tracking Application (ITA), which will serve as the secure website covered employers will use to electronically report mandatory injury and illness information. This was the missing piece preventing the July 1, 2017 deadline from taking effect, as OSHA had not set up the portal in advance of the original deadline. 

With the July 1, 2017 deadline looming for OSHA's electronic reporting requirement, it came as a relief to employers when, in May. OSHA gave word that it intended to propose extending this deadline.  

OSHA’s new anti-retaliation rule went into effect on December 1, 2016. The purpose of the new rule was to clarify what OSHA considered “the existing implicit requirement” that an employer work-related injury and illness policies be reasonable and not deter or discourage employees from reporting injuries. Since that time, employers and lawyers alike have waited to see what types of policies OSHA would target under the new rule. The Department of Labor’s recent complaint filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin sheds some light on that question.

OSHA has announced it intends to propose extending the July 1, 2017 deadline by which certain employers were scheduled to begin reporting workplace injuries and illnesses electronically, as required by OSHA's new rule.  This may not come as a surprise, as the electronic portal through which reporting is to be made has not been created.  Updates will be posted to OSHA's webpage, which you can find here, when available. 

OSHA recently announced it will no longer bring union representatives to inspections of non-unionized workplaces.  As a result, barring a designation by an employee (which I'll discuss further below), non-unionized employers no longer have reason to fear that an OSHA compliance officer will appear at the door accompanied by a union representative on an inspection or walk-around.

In the last few weeks, federal courts in Texas have been the center of attention, deciding what rules and regulations of the current administration may fall to legal challenges asserted in the jurisdiction by collections of states, business, and trade associations, among others.  Texas courts have issued preliminary injunctions impacting the persuader rule, and most recently the DOL's new overtime rule. 

Worried about what the new OSHA Final Rule means for your company? Don't worry – we've got you covered. If you are a business owner, in-house counsel, human resource policy decision-maker, employment and labor law specialist, or a front-line HR professional, you won't want to miss our webinar on Wednesday, December 7th at noon Central. Aimee Delaney and Elizabeth Odian will walk you through the revised OSHA regulations, their implications, and ways you can manage risk to your organization.