A newsletter of workplace safety and labor issues
New York Times reporter Barry Meier writes about OSHA’s failure to issue any enforcement-related press releases since inauguration and attacks on worker safety and health regulations. Trump admin has yet to issue a single OSHA press release highlighting fine for safety violation w @danielle_ivory t.co/5PeiXIOXoO — Barry Meier (@BarryMeier) March 13, 2017
Those of you who were quick on the draw may have noticed that for a few minutes this afternoon I thought OSHA had begun issuing press releases again. Foolish me. The source of my confusion was a recent citation against Robert Barringer III for $223,873 for four willful and five serious violations dated February 14,…
Good news. The Senate vote on repealing the Volks rule has been postponed from tomorrow until next week. Repeal of the Volks rule, you may recall, will make it impossible for OSHA to enforce accurate recording requirements. Still plenty of time to call you Senators. And urge your friends to call their Senators.
The Salt Lake City Tribune (partnering with The Utah Investigative Journalism Project) published an article last week entitled “Death on the Job: Utah’s worker safety agency rejects ‘heavy-handed’ enforcement,” which, as you can probably tell, addressed a number of serious problem with Utah’s Occupational Safety and Health program (UOSH): no penalties for public employee OSHA citations…
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on S.J Res 27/H.J. Res 83 repealing the so-called “Volks Rule.” Repealing this rule will make it impossible for OSHA to cite employers’ recordkeeping requirements in any meaningful way. I explain below in more detail why the repeal of this OSHA regulation will make workplaces less…
Introducing Confined Space 2.0. I was hoping to wait a bit longer to start this up, but with crippling budget cuts being proposed, Bannon’s plans to deconstruct the administrative state (to be replaced by the corporate state), repeals of recently issued OSHA regulations and “regulatory reform” initiatives in the White House and Congress that would…