California adopts emergency workplace safety rules for COVID-19

Nov 20, 2020
OSHA has declined to create national rules during the pandemic.
A security guard checks a customer's temperature outside a retail store. Efforts to prevent virus transmission in the workplace are gaining steam.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Republicans propose funding cuts to OSHA during pandemic

Nov 11, 2020
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says it has received more than 10,000 COVID-related complaints.
Loren Sweatt, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, responds to questions during a House subcommittee hearing on the federal government's actions to protect workers during COVID-19 on May 28, 2020 in Washington.
Rod Lamkey/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
A worker arrives at a COVID-19 testing site in Long Beach, California.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Domestic workers still don't have safety protections on the job

Oct 5, 2020
A California bill that would have extended those protections to house cleaners, nannies and elder care workers was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Cleaning staff disinfect the lectern in the White House pressroom in April. The COVID-19 outbreak at the White House has highlighted the importance of workplace safety laws.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Recessions are bad for labor movements ... except when they're not

Jul 31, 2020
What the history of union movements can teach us about worker power during the pandemic.
Women strikers on a New York City picket line during the Uprising of the 20,000, a garment workers strike of 1909 and 1910.
Bain News Service

As OSHA takes limited role in the pandemic, Virginia sets workplace safety rules

Jun 25, 2020
The state will make standards legally binding, where federal guidelines are mere recommendations.
An employee wearing gloves and a face mask cleans a restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. The state is finalizing safety mandates to protect employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Do employers need to keep track of sick workers?

Jun 22, 2020
Like so many things about the coronavirus, it depends.
A server wearing protective gear at work in a Maryland restaurant.
Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

How will we know when it's safe to go back to work? Workers and employers want to know.

May 11, 2020
Right now, OSHA doesn’t have a blanket legal standard for protecting workers from infectious diseases.
The medical definition of what's safe has been changing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

OSHA takes a limited role protecting workers in pandemic

Apr 29, 2020
The agency hasn't set specific safety standards to hold employers to.
President Donald Trump has declared that meat processing businesses are "critical infrastructure."
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images