Republican politicians: Let OSHA do its job

Quite early in my career as a lawyer for the U.S. Labor Department — at the dawn of the Reagan presidency — I found myself trying a number of safety and health cases against a large South Carolina construction company. The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) had been signed into law by President Richard Nixon a decade earlier, but this company, as a matter of principle, contested even minor OSHA violations it received, regardless of their merits. The company, as I recall, just couldn’t stomach that the federal government had the audacity —and the authority — to demand that it protect its workers from hazards in the workplace. Those early memories resonate today.

Passed in 1970, the OSH Act was designed to “assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women” by, among other things, “authorizing the enforcement of the standards developed under the Act.” Since its passage, this law — imperfect as it is — has saved the lives of countless workers in the United States. Far too many employees are still injured or die due to hazards on the job, but the OSH Act has made many millions of them safer and healthier.

Enter COVID-19. We saw “essential workers” — bus drivers, nurses, grocery store clerks, meatpacking plant workers — exposed to and dying from the virus. Under President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpCapitol fencing starts coming down after ‘Justice for J6’ rally Netanyahu suggests Biden fell asleep in meeting with Israeli PM Aides try to keep Biden away from unscripted events or long interviews, book claims MORE’s watch, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sat on its hands. It promulgated no new workplace standards to address the deadly pandemic and conducted grievously few on-site inspections. When the rare inspection found failures to properly protect workers from COVID-19 transmission under the OSH Act’s “general duty” clause, paltry fines were assessed.

President BidenJoe BidenCapitol fencing starts coming down after ‘Justice for J6’ rally Senate parliamentarian nixes Democrats’ immigration plan Biden pushes back at Democrats on taxes MORE vowed to do better. On Jan. 21, he ordered OSHA to amplify existing guidance and to immediately consider issuing an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that would mandate new protections from exposure to the virus. To the disappointment of many worker safety advocates, the ETS issued June 10 was limited to health care sector workplaces. The presumed — if not entirely convincing — reason was that the pace of vaccinations and the rapid drop in new cases obviated the need for a broader rule.

Fast forward to today. Vaccination rates aren’t where they need to be, and the delta variant is ravaging our communities. In early September, a majority of United States counties were experiencing “extremely high” COVID-19 transmission, which translates into extremely high risk for unvaccinated people in…