Audit, Compliance and Risk Blog

Is your organization hiring "temp" workers this summer—to gear back up after COVID-19, meet seasonal demand from tourists or other customers, or maybe just to fill in while permanent workers take vacations? Most employers recognize that occupational safety and health laws throughout North America assign them an Employer's General Duty to protect their own employees from workplace hazards. Some don’t remember that this duty also applies to shared employees, and even to other employers’ employees while they’re at your workplace. This month, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is re-emphasizing ongoing efforts to ensure protections for temporary workers ("temps"), pointing to its Temporary Worker Initiative (started in 2013), and extending its “Ambassador Alliance” with the American Staffing Association (started in 2014; ASA is a professional association that describes itself as “the voice of the U.S. staffing, recruiting, and workforce solutions industry”).

When must organizations evaluate and disclose how climate change will affect their operations?

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) provides a cooperative forum for Canada’s provincial and territorial securities regulators, including the development of model regulations and associated guidance. Last October, CSA took its latest step toward climate-related disclosure requirements, by proposing “National Instrument 51-107 – Disclosure of Climate-related Matters;” public comments were due by January 17, 2022. Assuming CSA moves ahead and finalizes this National instrument (NI), then securities regulators throughout Canada will enact equivalent requirements and establish compliance deadlines for companies they regulate.

The US federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulates workplace exposures to radiation, in two separate standards that distinguish between “non-ionizing” and “ionizing” radiation. OSHA’s Non-ionizing Radiation Standard (29 CFR 1910.97) addresses workplace exposures to electromagnetic waves from radio and microwave sources.  OSHA has established radioactive exposure levels intended to protect exposed employees, and requires placarding to inform those who enter areas bathed in non-ionizing radiation.

On June 30, 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom signed state Senate Bill (SB) 54, enacting the “Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act.” The Act phases in a ban on non-recyclable single-use plastics by 2032, and requires that threshold proportions of single-use items sold as “recyclable” will actually be recycled. Its implementation will make use of “extended producer responsibility” mechanism similar to those used in California and elsewhere for other enhanced recycling programs (I’ve written about these before, most recently HERE and HERE). The new Act will be overseen by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle). The new Act complements a variety of other state programs, many also overseen by CalRecycle. The remainder of this note discusses SB 54’s provisions.

The US federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations specify the formats of workplace warning signs and tags to alert workers to the presence of a variety of physical and health hazards.  OSHA’s Accident Prevention Signs and Tags Standard (29 CFR 1910.145) specifies wording, colors, shapes—even requiring sign corners to be rounded off.  OSHA sets up a hierarchy of hazards, and associated warnings. In addition, many of OSHA’s targeted standards include specific requirements for signs and tags.

The US federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published its annual list of the “Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Standards” for fiscal year (FY) 2021. The tabulation covers October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021; OSHA delays its annual publication to allow time for inspections during a fiscal year to produce citations if appropriate. (I wrote about OSHA inspection procedures and priorities HERE). The remainder of this note summarizes the new list.

This summer is again bringing record-breaking heat to parts of North America. It's time to remember that outdoor work in the summer sun can lead to heat illness, as can indoor work in spaces that aren’t sufficiently insulated or cooled. It’s also time to consider the possible impacts of local or regional wildfires on workplace air quality. Washington state provides useful benchmarks for these considerations, through rules administered every summer by the Department of Labor & Industries’ (L&I’s) Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The remainder of this note summarizes those requirements.

On June 17, the Ninth Circuit (federal) Court of Appeals issued an important ruling on national pesticide regulation, directed at the chemical glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in the ubiquitous weedkiller Roundup (originally marketed by Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer in 2018). The order remands to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the agency’s determination that glyphosate does not pose “any unreasonable risk to man or the environment,” citing evidence that such risks may indeed be present. The case, Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA, interprets and applies the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). This decision is the latest step in controversies dating to 2009, when EPA began its latest FIFRA hazard review and reregistration determination for glyphosate.

On June 20, 2022, the government of Canada published “Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations”, which will ban the manufacture and importation of most single-use plastics effective December 20, 2022, with some delayed deadlines to December 20, 2023. Bans on sale will phase in between December 20, 2023 and December 20, 2025. These rules are an important part of national efforts to reduce the manufacture and use of plastics, in order to reduce both resources used to manufacture them, and pollution when they are disposed or discarded. These new regulations are the most far-reaching of global efforts to date (as a narrower example, I wrote about California’s Microplastics Policy HERE). The remainder of this note summarizes the new Canadian regulations.

On May 22, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH, but generally referred to as “Cal/OSHA”) issued its latest revised discussion draft of a regulatory standard mandating workplace violence prevention (WVP) steps for employers in “general industry” (potential 8 CCR 3343). This draft revives an effort that began in 2017, when the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (OSHSB) responded to a schoolteacher’s petition that the state enact a WVP standard for educational settings by agreeing to consider one for all settings not covered by its standard for WVP in healthcare settings (which I wrote about HERE). The remainder of this note discusses the latest draft.