#WorkforceWednesday: OSHA Issues COVID-19 Citations, Michigan Enacts Liability Shield, and States Battle for Telecommuter Taxes - Employment Law This Week®
Employers will face higher penalties for workplace safety violations in 2025 now that the U.S. Department of Labor has just published its listing of annual increases. These yearly increases to OSHA’s maximum civil penalties...more
Our Workplace Safety thought leaders have pulled together their top predictions for the new year so that employers can get a running start to 2025....more
Following another close national election, President Trump returns to the White House for a second term, and resumes control over the vast Executive Branch bureaucracy, including the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety...more
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), like many federal agencies, has finite resources for carrying out its essential functions. It simply isn’t feasible, nor efficient or effective, for OSHA regulators to...more
The Department of Labor recently published the Solicitor of Labor’s (SOL) 2023 Enforcement Report, which provides insight into the Department’s initiatives and enforcement priorities for 2024. ...more
This year, as has been the case the past six years, January brings two items from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that almost all employers will want to keep in mind. One is an adjustment to the...more
The U.S. Department of Labor has just published its yearly increases to the maximum civil penalties that may be assessed via citations against employers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as a result...more
CONSIDERATIONS FOR EMPLOYERS AS OSHA PENALTIES SOAR TO NEW HEIGHTS - The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced inflation-adjustment increases in penalties for violating regulations promulgated by DOL agencies,...more
If you weren’t already concerned about the rate of inflation, its effect has produced another blow in the OSHA world. Under the terms of the 2015 Inflation Adjustment Act, the U.S. Department of Labor has once again made the...more
Prior to the Trump administration, OSHA commonly engaged in the practice of “public shaming.” In other words, if an OSHA investigation found a relatively serious safety violation, it would issue a press release identifying...more
Annually in mid-January, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) adjusts its civil penalty assessments, in accordance with the inflation adjustment provisions of the Federal Civil Penalties...more
With everyone trying to predict what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will do under the Biden Administration, there is one certainty that we can let you know about. As now happens automatically every January...more
During the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Labor began regularly issuing press releases when an employer received a major Occupational Safety and Health Administration citation or overtime assessment. The press...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL has published its 2020 increases to OSHA civil penalties. We have blogged previously about the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) annual adjustments to the maximum civil penalty dollar amounts for...more
FBI Eyes How Pennsylvania Approved Pipeline - "The FBI has begun a corruption investigation into how Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration came to issue permits for construction on a multibillion-dollar pipeline project to carry...more
Ever wonder what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would do if an employer refused to pay a fine? We just found out, and it’s not just the employer that needs to be concerned. After a New Jersey-based...more
The Department of Defense, General Services Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (the FAR Council) have issued for publication in today’s Federal Register, a final rule amending the Federal...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: OSHA finalized a 78% increase to per violation penalties. In a an interim final rulemaking published last week, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) finalized amendments to adjust the maximum civil...more
Most would agree that workplace safety is of the utmost importance. Accordingly, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (“OSH Act”) was enacted for the purpose of ensuring that employers provide their employees safe...more
On December 17, 2015, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced an expansion to the Worker Endangerment Initiative intended to increase the frequency and effectiveness of criminal...more
An Administrative Law Judge has held that the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) “may have authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act” to order abatement measures sought by the Occupational...more
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is charged with enforcing the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA Act), and its various regulations intended to keep employees safe in their workplaces. Failure to...more