Cal/OSHA will create emergency COVID workplace safety rules

Standards will require employers to take stricter precautions against COVID-19.

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health will move forward with emergency statewide standards to address what worker advocates have been calling “an occupational health emergency,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

A seven-member board appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom voted unanimously to begin creating standards that would require employers to take stricter precautions against COVID-19.

The board oversees standards enforced by the agency, better known as Cal/OSHA.

The board didn’t specify what rules it intends to create or which workplaces will be affected. Specific requirements will be hashed out in the weeks to come. 

The proposal was backed by a coalition of worker rights groups, unions and environmental groups. It faced staunch opposition from business interests that called any additional requirements unnecessary and “duplicative.”

“Recalcitrant employers who are not following existing requirements are certainly not going to follow new ones,” said Elizabeth Treanor, director of the Phylmar Regulatory Roundtable, which represents corporations. “There is no evidence a new rule would improve compliance.”

In recent weeks, Cal/OSHA has taken steps to ramp up enforcement. This month the agency announced it was proposing more than $500,000 in fines against a frozen foods company and a temporary staffing agency for failing to protect hundreds of workers at two facilities in Vernon.

The agency is also hiring retired inspectors after articles by The Times chronicled understaffing within Cal/OSHA’s ranks.