Workers

Congressional Republicans are planning to go after more than a half dozen additional regulations in an attempt to significantly limit the ability of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to protect workers. Since 2015, federal contractors have had very significant violations of wage and hour laws and safety incidents over the past few years, and the regulations currently under attack were intended to curb these offenses and address health concerns causes by exposure to specific chemicals.

A coalition of nearly 400 U.S. companies employing a combined 9% of private-sector workers has asked Congress to step in and invalidate state and city laws requiring paid leave.

The strike from the business community is a response to the increasing number of states and municipalities that have taken matters into their own hands, passing local laws that require employers to offer paid time off. 

On March 8th, we shared that the Senate voted 49-48 to eliminate a regulation requiring federal contractors to disclose and correct safety violations.

Again on March 22nd, the Senate voted against worker protections and work place safety, this time by a 50-48 vote.  In this case, the vote was to nix an OSHA rule that allowed up to five years to penalize a company for failing to report harmful incidents.

In an unsurprising, yet no less significant, vote the Senate moved one step closer to eliminating a regulation that requires federal contractors to disclose and correct safety violations.

 In a narrow result that divided along party lines, the Senate voted 49 to 48 to eliminate the regulation, dubbed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Finalized in August and blocked by a court order in October, the rule would limit the ability of companies with recent safety problems to compete for government contracts unless they agreed to remedies.