OSHA Weighs in on COVID-19 Worker Safety Issues

We all knew it was coming. A country can’t be plunged into a year long pandemic hibernation without the Occupational Safety and Health Administration weighing. And weigh in OSHA did.

Issuing 16 new guidelines, OSHA has said, amongst other things,. that:

• Businesses need a dedicated COVID-19 coordinator;

• Businesses should identify what measures they’ve put in place to protect workers from the corona virus;

• Businesses need to be mindful of the specific needs of high risk employees;

• Business should send COVID-positive workers home until they’re safe to return;

• Businesses should make the vaccine available at no or low cost to the employees

• Business should not distinguish between vaccinate and non-vaccinated employees; and

• Businesses must take steps to avoid retaliation.

While many of these may strike you as being logical or courteous, the one that is most alarming to me is the one about retaliation. Retaliation is a big no-no for the EEOC (over half the cases the EEOC pursued last year were retaliation cases) and it would seem that relation in the COVID-19 world is a bomb tha’s going to explode. Don’t get caught by any shrapnel.

For more on the OSHA announcement, click here.