Workplace violence, LOTO, silica on OSHA’s spring 2019 regulatory agenda
The spring 2019 regulatory agenda released by OSHA last week includes rulemakings in various stages that will be priorities for the agency in the near future.
Workplace Violence in Health Care: After having published an RFI in 2016 that solicited input on issues and prevention strategies to consider in developing a standard, OSHA now intends to initiate a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel to address the issue of preventing workplace violence specifically in healthcare and social assistance industries. Congress, however, introduced a bill earlier this year that would fast-track the regulatory process by directing OSHA to adopt and implement a final rule without following the traditional rulemaking procedures. In Congressional hearings on the "Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act," attorney Manesh K. Roth of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm, Keller and Heckman LLP, said; “There is no crisis that would justify casting aside the traditional rulemaking due process. A safety or health standard should be adopted only after gathering input from the affected stakeholder community as to the most effective way to proceed.”