More Inspections,
Greater Citations Ahead “Te Biden administration is
issuing new OSHA regulations and stepping up enforcement
in a move to ensure workplace safety. In response, businesses are retooling operations and
sanitation procedures to protect personnel from accidents and
Covid infections. A recent OSHA advisory describes steps to reduce the risk of violations.”
“One thing I think you're going to see during the Biden administration is a focus on musculoskeletal disorders (ergonomics, repetitive motions, lifting) and combustible dust,” adds Foulke. “Also, I think sometime this year OSHA will go back to requiring that 250-plus employers in certain industries file not only 300A Summaries but also the 300 logs and the First Report of Injury forms.”
Employer organizations will likely litigate onerous OSHA rules. “Trade associations have been successful in the past in getting injunctions against OSHA regulations deemed outside the agency’s jurisdiction or overly burdensome,” notes Douglas E. Witte, who represents businesses in labor and employment law matters at Madison, Wisconsin- based Boardman & Clark (
boardmanclark.com). “Sometimes the regulations are modified, or simply delayed for a year or longer.”
Work-Related Illness
If an employee comes down with Covid and misses work time or goes to the hospital, is the illness recordable as work related? Te answer is often less than clear. “Up until now, OSHA has not been pushing too hard on employers who claim Covid-19 infections occurred outside the workplace,” says Witte. Employers have been operating under fairly liberal standards, thanks to OSHA guidance issued in the spring of 2020 that allowed Covid illnesses to be categorized as not work related if an “alternative explanation” could account for the infections.
Unfortunately, the term “alternative explanation” is vague, and OSHA does not provide examples. “Te guidance is being interpreted, by some, as indicating that if the employer can point to some exposure away from the workplace, then the case can be deemed not work-related,”
TPI Turf News May/June 2021
says Principe. Others are even taking the position that because Covid is being spread everywhere, an infection is not work-related unless the employee has continually commuted in their own car, stayed in their own house, and not gone to a grocery store or interacted with the public in any way.
Tat kind of liberal interpretation, though, skirts the edge of justice. “I think you need more concrete evidence that the employee was exposed to an infected person away from work,” cautions Principe. “Perhaps their spouse, children, or people they socialized with have Covid, or perhaps they attended a super-spreader event.”
Faulty categorizations can be costly. “OSHA issues citations to employers who fail to properly record or report cases,” says Principe. “Te agency is often tipped off by whistle blowers, or they get word of infections through hospitals or public health departments.” Penalties for serious violations start at $13,653, although the amount is sometimes reduced in the event of a good faith history. Citations for willful or repeated issues start at $136,532.
Certainly, there is no need to record cases that are clearly not work-related. While an employer may do so out of fear of a citation, being too inclusive can backfire. “Over-reporting can spark an OSHA inspection when the entries from an employer’s logs are entered on their 300A Summaries,” says Foulke. “Tose are available for review not only to OSHA but also to plaintiff’s lawyers and community activists like Common Cause. Skewed numbers can impact a business’s ability to get future work from clients.”
45
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
