Washington — House Democrats as soon as once more are looking for to increase OSHA protection to state and native authorities workers and enhance financial penalties for “high gravity” OSHA violations.
Sponsored by Reps. Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Bobby Scott (D-VA), the Protecting America’s Workers Act – reintroduced April 28, Workers Memorial Day – would additionally reinstate the “Volks” rule. That would enable OSHA to quote employers for recordkeeping violations inside 5½ years after an incident, as a substitute of six months. The rule was repealed by a Congressional Review Act decision, signed by former President Donald Trump, in April 2017.
Other provisions embrace:
- Authorizing felony penalties towards employers “who knowingly commit OSHA violations that result in death or serious bodily injury.” Those penalties might lengthen to company officers and administrators.
- Requiring OSHA to analyze all instances of loss of life and critical accidents that happen inside a spot of employment.
- Updating out of date consensus requirements that had been adopted by OSHA within the Nineteen Seventies.
- Strengthening whistleblower protections.
- Expanding harm and sickness information that employers need to report and preserve.
- Mandating that employers appropriate hazardous situations in a “timely manner.”
The “high-gravity” OSHA violations would come with critical or willful violations that trigger loss of life or critical harm.
The invoice, which has 12 co-sponsors, has been launched various instances in each the House and Senate over the previous twenty years. None of these earlier payments has superior out of committee. The first was launched by the late Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy (D-MA) in April 2004.
“It’s fitting that we are reintroducing the Protecting America’s Workers Act on Workers Memorial Day and honor all who have died or been injured on the job,” Courtney stated in a press launch. “While the Occupational Safety and Health Act has helped protect Americans for generations, too many workers are still facing injury, illness or death. Congress must pass the Protecting America’s Workers Act to address the shortfalls in the law that have hamstrung further progress toward safer workplaces.”
