Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman has denied in their entirety two requests for temporary injunctions against Cal/OSHA’s COVID emergency temporary standard. The requests were filed by two separate employer groups. Schulman had issued a preliminary ruling in late January. In a 40-page order, Schulman rejected all the arguments of the plaintiffs, led by the National …
( Courtesy Workers’ Comp Executive ) New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Amazon.com Inc., alleging it failed to adequately protect its New York area employees’ health and safety to turn a higher profit. The lawsuit also alleges that Amazon has taken retaliatory actions against employees who protested working conditions, including terminations and other …
Here’s a first: The Cal/OSHA Standards Board has denied a petition, and the petitioners say they completely support the decision. Let’s just say they saw their request as necessary at the time, but events have made the petition superfluous. Here’s the story: In April 2020 as the COVID pandemic was rampaging across the country, the …
The Cal/OSHA Standards Board voted unanimously in November to adopt emergency rules designed to protect all California workers from COVID-19. The action put in place specific, mandatory requirements for employers to follow to reduce workplace transmission of the virus. Cal/OSHA now has tools to ensure that employers follow basic protocols, such as maintaining physical distance …
There are 22 workplace fatalities in the second week of February, 21 of them from COVID. The non-COVID fatality was: An employee of Yosemite Falls Labor, who was crushed to death while unplugging branches from a running almond shredder. No other information about this incident is available yet. The COVID fatalities include employees of: Healthcare …
Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health is moving quickly to make changes to its controversial COVID standard. All of this against a backdrop of lawsuits from employers’ groups and a pending restraining order against enforcement. What quick means in regulatory time is unclear. But the Division recently did hold a series of lengthy advisory …
Cal-OSHA Reporter recently had an update about an August 2019 fatality at a Northern California agricultural operation. Minturn Huller Cooperative agreed to pay half of the proposed $38,925 Cal/OSHA penalty. The Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program has come to its own conclusions about the incident and how to prevent future incidents. William Parker, 67, …
Each year, Cal/OSHA issues thousands of citations. Most smart employers appeal those citations, but a significant number of them lose their appeals on technical grounds. The Cal/OSHA system is intended so that employers can represent themselves, but there are plenty of pitfalls. Here are some of the common mistakes that can upend your appeal. “The …