{"id":12567,"date":"2025-10-09T17:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=12567"},"modified":"2025-10-09T17:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:10:08","slug":"osha-msha-get-leaders-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2025\/10\/09\/osha-msha-get-leaders-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"OSHA & MSHA Get Leaders: A Good Thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>SHA and MSHA finally have leaders.\u00a0 David Keeling was confirmed by the Senate earlier this week to be the new Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. At the same time, Wayne Palmer was confirmed as Assistant Secretary for MSHA. This will be the first OSHA Assistant Secretary appointed by a Republican President since Ed Foulke was confirmed in the second term of the George W. Bush administration.\u00a0 No assistant secretary was ever confirmed during the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n

What do these appointments mean for workplace safety and health? Hard to say at this point. Probably nothing good. The question is how terrible they will be.<\/p>\n

On one hand, these appointments are pretty typical of Republican administrations who tend to appoint corporate health and safety directors. Keeling served as Vice President for Global Health and Safety at Amazon and held several positions at UPS, ending his work there as Vice President for Global Safety. Palmer has less real health and safety, or mining experience. He was deputy assistant secretary for MSHA during the first Trump administration.\u00a0 Before that, he was chief of staff to Trump\u2019s first Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta. Prior to being nominated by Trump to head MSHA, he was executive vice president at the Essential Minerals Associatio<\/a>n, which \u201crepresents the interests of companies that mine or process minerals that are critical to manufacturing, energy, agriculture, infrastructure, transportation, and technology industries. \u201d<\/p>\n

What Does Everyone Think?<\/h2>\n

Industry groups are, of course, delighted, looking forward to less rulemaking and a more “friendly” OSHA that doesn’t focus on all that “confrontational” enforcement. Fisher-Philips<\/a>, an employer-focused law firm, declared Keeling’s confirmation “a new day for employers across the country.” (No mention of the accompanying new night(mares) for employees<\/em> across the country….)<\/p>\n

Some of the major institutional workplace safety and health organizations seem pleased. National Safety Council<\/a> CEO Lorraine M. Martin called Keeling a \u201ca proven safety leader who will help continue the agency\u2019s long legacy of protecting the health and wellbeing of our workers.\u201d (Let’s hope.)<\/p>\n

She added that the NSC \u201clooks forward to partnering with OSHA to continue to exert strong leadership on issues impacting workplace safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Safety Council CEO Lorraine M. Martin called Keeling a \u201ca proven safety leader who will help continue the agency\u2019s long legacy of protecting the health and wellbeing of our workers.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the American Society of Safety Professionals<\/a> (ASSP) calls Keeling “a strong proponent of protecting workers,” and “is encouraged by Keeling\u2019s commitment and vision to modernize regulatory oversight and rulemaking through the implementation of cutting-edge technologies, predictive analytics and informed design, which can significantly reduce workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities.”<\/p>\n

The American Industrial Hygiene Association has not commented on Keeling’s confirmation.<\/p>\n

Neither seems to be a MAGA ideologue dedicated to the destruction of the agencies they now head — at least for now. Labor unions are not pleased with Trump’s treatment of workplace safety and health, or general labor issues, although most have so far remained silent on the confirmations. Keeling does have some support from the Teamster leadership. \u201cHe\u2019s someone we feel we are able to have a conversation with,\u201d\u00a0 according to Kara Deniz, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters, which represents 340,000 UPS drivers and package handlers.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Keeling hardly has a sterling health and safety record, having opposed union requests to put air conditioning in UPS vehicles.\u00a0 Anastasia Christman, senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, said that she understands\u00a0 \u201cthat people who come from running big businesses might have some real experience in health and safety. That said, I don\u2019t think his track record would indicate he\u2019s a real champion on these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, as the NY Time reports<\/a>, Keeling’s record at Amazon wasn’t much better:<\/p>\n

Mr. Keeling\u2019s brief time at Amazon, as director of global road and transportation safety from 2021 to 2023, coincided with heightened criticism over worker deaths and injuries under extreme heat, as well as the company\u2019s opposition to workers\u2019 attempts to unionize. Amazon delivery drivers and others have started to organize in some locations.<\/p>\n

Amazon said it has received just three heat-related OSHA citations for inadequate safety protections since 2019, one of which was withdrawn, another which was downgraded, and one which the company was contesting.<\/p>\n

The Warehouse Worker Resource Center<\/a> also opposed Keeling.<\/p>\n

While Keeling was a key workplace safety executive at Amazon, we saw that Amazon\u2019s push for speed came at the expense of\u00a0worker safety and health<\/a>. Injuries are disturbingly common in Amazon warehouses and Amazon has frequently contested even the smallest citation. Keeling also worked at UPS as a top safety executive at a time when drivers documented heat illness and other hazards at work. In fact,\u00a0OSHA cited Amazon and UPS for over 300<\/a>\u00a0safety violations combined during Keeling\u2019s respective tenures at each company.<\/p>\n

What Can We Expect?<\/h2>\n

So, under a normal<\/em> Republican administration, we would see more emphasis on programs like OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs and Alliances, and less emphasis on “confrontational” enforcement which should only be focused on the “worst of the worst.”\u00a0 The prioritization of “voluntary” programs like VPP does not inspire confidence. The last Administration that declared VPP the wave of the future<\/a> (the George W. Bush administration) saw a stark deterioration in the integrity of the program<\/a>.\u00a0 OSHA field staff were given quotas to sharply grow VPP, but the effort resulted a severe backlog in VPP reevaluations and allowed VPP participants to remain in the program even after workers had been killed on their sites and some had received willful OSHA violations.<\/p>\n

We can’t expect much in the way of new regulatory protections. No Republican administration has issued a major health and safety standard since the 1993, during the George H.W. Bush administration (except when ordered by the courts).<\/p>\n

We can’t expect much in the way of new regulatory protections. No Republican administration has issued a major health and safety standard since the 1993, during the George H.W. Bush administration (except when ordered by the courts).<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But, of course, these are not normal<\/em> times. These are Trump times.\u00a0 There was hope that his appointed of the labor-adjacent Lori Chavez DeRemer as Secretary of Labor would signal moderation on the labor front, only to see her become an acolyte of the Trump-MAGA cult — adorning the Department of Labor with a gigantic (and expensive) smiling face of dear leader — while at the same time eliminating or drastically downsizing the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the Woman’s Bureau and Labor’s international office (ILAB) and eliminating requirements<\/a> to pay home care workers at least the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage or pay overtime.\u00a0 Her goal is to restore \u201cAmerican prosperity through deregulation and marking the most ambitious proposal to slash worker protections<\/del> red tape of any department across the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

All DOL agencies have seen significant downsizing, and DOL has issued proposed regulations weakening OSHA, Wage & Hour and other workplace protections. Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal<\/a> calls for an 8% cut in OSHA’s overall budget, a 24% cut in standards, a 10% cut in enforcement (and 10,000 fewer 2026 workplace inspections) and elimination of the Susan Harwood Worker Training Grant program. MSHA would also face a 10% cut under the President’s proposed budget.<\/p>\n

We’ve already seen proposals to weaken OSHA’s General Duty Clause<\/a> and other standards and undermine enforcement and other protections. We’ve also seen the disappearance or mothballing<\/a> of several OSHA regulatory initiatives.\u00a0 In addition, OSHA, under the Obama and Biden administrations, increased the amount of injury and illness information employers were required to send to OSHA, and published that data on OSHA’s website.\u00a0 The publication of their injury and illness data was opposed by industry representatives and we can expect the agency to roll those back. See no evil…..<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, over at MSHA, the agency is still refusing to enforce MSHA’s new silica standard<\/a> which the Biden administration issued to prevent the growing number of severe black lung cases that miners are suffering.\u00a0 That standard was supposed to come into effect almost 6 months ago, while miners continue to inhale deadly amounts of silica dust. The agency is also weakening MSHA’s enforcement ability by proposing<\/a>\u00a0to revoke the authority of MSHA District Managers to require mine operators to improve protections for miners in the roof control and ventilation plans of individual mines.<\/p>\n

Although OSHA allowed the hearings on an OSHA heat standard to proceed, it is unclear whether the Trump administration will continue to move forward on a heat standard. Given the nationwide pressure to protect workers from growing heat hazards, there is also the possibility that OSHA will decide to issue a weak, unenforceable shadow of the Biden administration’s strong proposal.<\/p>\n

Keeling’s record is not great when it comes to protecting workers against heat<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A recent review of federal records<\/a> by investigative outlet the Lever found that during Keeling\u2019s tenure, OSHA fined the two companies a combined $2 million for more than 300 workplace safety citations, including for heat-related incidents.<\/p>\n

In the past decade, more than\u00a0170 UPS workers<\/a>\u00a0have been hospitalized due to heat exposure, including more than 50 during Keeling\u2019s tenure. And at\u00a0Amazon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0UPS<\/a>, at least seven workers died after extreme heat exposure in recent years with at least three of those deaths occurring when Keeling was at the companies.\u00a0Both companies<\/a>\u00a0denied<\/a>\u00a0any of the deaths were both heat-related and job-related.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are companies that are known to be not that great when it comes to dealing with extreme heat,\u201d said Juley Fulcher, a worker health and safety advocate at consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen.<\/p>\n

Tree Care<\/a> is another standard that OSHA could conceivably issue — under pressure from the Tree Care Industry Association which sees a standard as a way to force small landscaping companies out of the tree care business. But most of the agency’s regulatory efforts are like to be focused to deregulation, rather than increasing much needed protections for American workers. reprioritization<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

At best, we’ll see a typical Republican OSHA and MSHA that deprioritize enforcement and standards and focus instead on compliance assistance and “voluntary” programs. But there are also fears that the agencies have been saving their worst until they have confirmed leadership. What their “worst” might be, we can only imagine. This administration has been hard to predict, and we still have well over a year before we can expect any effective Congressional oversight.\u00a0 So, are we left only with hopes and prayers or will workers, unions, public health advocates and sympathetic lawmakers rise up to oppose any significant weakening of workplace health and safety protections?<\/p>\n

Watch this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OSHA and MSHA finally have leaders.\u00a0 David Keeling was confirmed by the Senate earlier this week to be the new Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. At the same time, Wayne Palmer was confirmed as Assistant Secretary for MSHA. This will be the first OSHA Assistant Secretary appointed by a Republican President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-osha"],"yoast_head":"\nOSHA & MSHA Get Leaders: A Good Thing? - Confined Space<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Senate has confirmed the new leaders of OSHA and MSHA. 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