OSHA’s recent enforcement activity serves as a reminder to employers across all industries of the obligation to record work-related COVID-19-related infections, hospitalizations and fatalities. An employer’s failure to comply with OSHA’s recordkeeping and reporting requirements could result in significant penalties.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently issued guidance and an accompanying one-page summary outlining which standards are most frequently cited during coronavirus-related inspections. 

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic through Dec. 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued citations arising from 300 inspections for violations relating to coronavirus, resulting in proposed penalties totaling $3,930,381.

OSHA reached a settlement agreement with the Target Corporation, resolving several cases before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Target agreed to pay $464,750 in penalties to resolve a series of eight cases at the review commission.

The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) issued COVID-19 “general duty" citations to 19 different businesses with serious violations for failing to uphold safety and health workplace guidelines, potentially putting workers in harm’s way. 

OSHA has cited a second large meat production company for failing to protect employees from exposure to the coronavirus.

California’s workplace safety regulator has cited a frozen food manufacturer and its temporary employment agency for failing to protect hundreds of employees from the coronavirus at two Los Angeles area plants.

OSHA has cited Smithfield Packaged Meats Corp. in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for failing to protect employees from exposure to the coronavirus.

OSHA has cited Martin-Pinero CPM LLC – a construction contractor based in Atlanta, Georgia – for exposing employees to fall hazards after a fatal incident at a highway construction project in Atlanta. The company faces $170,020 in penalties.

OSHA has issued violations against 11 of the contractors working on New Orleans' Hard Rock Hotel when it collapsed in October 2019.