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36 PalletCentral • March-April 2021 palletcentral.com palletcentral.com OSHA By Adele L. Abrams, Esq., CMSP Elections Have Consequences for OSHA Issues T he dust continues to settle in Washington, D.C., and a new President has been sworn in along with a newly blue-tinged Congress. e first month of the Biden Administration was disrupted in part due to impeachment hearings, which slowed the confirmation of cabinet officials that would implement the new President's initiatives. In addition, while the new Congress convened on time, two significant Senate seats were in question and both Georgia slots ultimately flipped from Republican to Democrat, leaving a 50-50 tie to be broken as needed by Vice President Harris (president of the Senate). So, the real action has yet to truly commence in terms of major departures on the labor, safety and health front but the players are in place and, as the saying goes, "what's past is prologue." Here's what to expect. OSHA Enforcement ere will be a new sheriff in town shortly at the U.S. Department of Labor: Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, whose nomination was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee on February 11th with a full Senate hearing by the end of the month. Mayor Walsh has a long history as a union laborer (and the son of one) who rose to the top of the Boston Building Trades union before becoming Mayor. At his confirmation hearing, he spoke movingly of his father's occupational lung damage from asbestos and construction dust and it is likely that occupational health will be a strong focus for him. e Labor Department has stayed implementation of the department's January 2021 final rule on independent contractors, which made it easier to classify workers as contractors rather than employees (with fewer benefits and legal protections), and it is expected that the rule will be rescinded by the agency or repealed by Congress under the Congressional Review Act. Another Trump-era rule, on Joint Employers (making it harder to classify two companies as "joint" such as in a franchise or host/ staffing agency arrangement) was killed by the U.S. District Court (SD-NY ) in September 2020, and the Biden Labor Department will not fight to preserve it. OSHA has an acting Assistant Secretary of Labor, Jim Frederick, a retired official with the United Steelworkers of America who most recently was employed by the National Safety Council. With these workplace safety/labor experts at the helm, expect both rigorous enforcement and an aggressive rulemaking agenda during the next four years. President Biden's January 2021 Executive Order on workplace safety directs OSHA to: • Review enforcement efforts and identify changes that can better protect workers and ensure "equity" in enforcement, • Launch national emphasis programs focusing on violations putting the largest number of workers at risk, and • Coordinate a multilingual outreach campaign with multiple stakeholders While the Trump Administration reduced the number of existing National Emphasis Programs from over a dozen to nine by the end of its term, among those is the amputation prevention program (which does target the pallet industry) and its combustible dust national emphasis, which Here is our update on what could change under the Biden Administration.

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