Celeste Monforton, an assistant research professor in the Department of Environmental
and Occupational Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health &
Health Services, and chair of the Occupational Health & Safety Section of the American Public Health Association, offered a number of thoughts and ideas, shared by many OSHA activists, for introducing new incentives for safe workplaces, the title of a Senate hearing held April 28.
At a House hearing April 28, Lawrence Halprin, an attorney with the law firm of Keller and Heckman, LLP, provided a decidedly opposing view to the rhetoric of House Democrats and the AFL-CIO’s Peg Seminario on the need to significantly strengthen OSHA penalties.
At a House hearing on April 28, AFL-CIO Director of Safety and Health Peg Seminario outlined a 12-plan to put real “teeth” into OSHA enforcement, as she described. With an administration and Labor Secretary sympathetic to union concerns and grievances, you can be sure Seminario’s views are echoing in the Department of Labor. Acting OSHA chief Jordan Barab’s former boss on Capitol Hill, Rep.George Miller (D-CA), sponsored the April 28 hearing and introduced legislation the previous week to beef up OSHA enforcement. Barab has been quoted in internal OSHA emails as vowing to recharge OSHA enforcement and reinvigorate the agency.
Following last week’s introduction of H.R. 2067, The Protecting America’s Workers Act, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing April 28 on whether OSHA laws ensure that employers who fail to protect their workers are adequately penalized and deterred from committing future violations.
With a friendly administration in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress, unions are pushing hard for changes in how the federal government researches and reports annual injury and illnesses.
In its annual report on the state of job safety and health protections and performance, timed to be released on Workers’ Memorial Day, April 28, the AFL-CIO this year savaged the Bush administration’s handling of OSHA affairs.
Who says OSHA needs a full-time administrator, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, to steer the agency? Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is taking it upon herself to be the kind of job safety activist the Labor Department has not seen in years, if not decades.
The Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing on Thursday, April 30 on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Enhanced Enforcement Program.
Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee, led by U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), chair of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, introduced legislation April 23 that “would help the nation’s health and safety agencies to hold unscrupulous employers accountable for exposing their workers to preventable hazards,” according to a committee press release.
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced that OSHA will convene a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel May 5 on a draft proposed rule on occupational exposure to diacetyl and food flavorings containing diacetyl, according to an OSHA press release.