OSHA pursues new safety rule for health care facilities

After previous attempts expired or were knocked down in federal court, the Labor Department is now working to create a permanent set of coronavirus safety rules for health care facilities, trying to establish the only enforceable workplace safety rules two years after the virus began spreading through the United States.

The agency’s effort, which is in an early stage, shows how much the Biden administration has struggled to stand up a set of policies aimed at protecting workers from an easily transmissible virus. Writing and implementing the rules could take months, or even years, because of pushback and court challenges. But White House officials believe the policies are important for safeguarding public health.

The policy would include things like mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing, and create new cleaning and disinfecting procedures. They could also require the notification of workers when they are exposed to infections among co-workers, under the threat of penalty. The policy, which officials hope would be permanent, would come after a temporary policy was allowed to lapse.

Last June, the Labor Department released a temporary rule that required these measures for health care facilities, but officials let the rules expire in December — angering many labor unions and workers as the omicron surge began to take off. The Labor Department did not give a clear reason for its expiration at the time, saying only it would make the permanent rule a priority.

The Biden administration also worked to impose vaccine-or-test requirements at businesses, but the bulk of its effort was recently blocked by the Supreme Court. The Court did allow the White House’s vaccine rule for health care workers to stay in place.

Still, the new effort comes after more than 872,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus amid more than 73 million infections.

Though there is no detailed data on the issue, workplaces have made for a significant part of the pandemic’s spread, experts say, and safety advocates and labor unions have been disappointed federal officials have been slow to create broad safety protections for workers during the pandemic.

Some safety advocates said they didn’t fully understand why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would pursue a permanent rule while letting the temporary rule expire in the meantime — which leaves a months or even years long gap in mandatory protections amid the ongoing pandemic.

“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” said Jordan Barab, a former OSHA official during the Obama years. “Their intention to issue a standard within six months is almost impossible. Their argument for withdrawing it didn’t make sense, and now they find themselves in a pickle where no worker has protection. They’re in a mess that I think they’re having trouble figuring out how to get out of.”

The news emerged in a court filing the agency issued while battling a lawsuit filed against it by a group of unions including National Nurses United, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations federation, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The unions charge that the agency unlawfully let the temporary health care rule expire — and that legally it should remain in effect.

“We were appalled and disappointed that something like this would be withdrawn, leaving us in grave danger,” NNU president Zenei Cortez said in an interview. “And with that withdrawal, the employers would go back to doing what they did before — denying us PPE, and [operating] without infection protocols. We don’t need any more accolades or compliments or whatever. What we need is protection.”