Health and Safety regulations have been weakened during the Trump presidency, here is a look at some of the changes over the past years giving workers less protections while companies continue to rake in record profits.
Since Being Elected; Trump Adminstration’s Workers Safety & Health Record
ROLLBACKS & REPEALS
- Repealed OSHA rule requiring employers to keep accurate injury records (H.J.Res83).
- Repealed Fair Pay & Safe Workplaces rule to hold federal contractors accountable for obeying safety & labor laws (H.J. Res.37)
- Issued Executive Order 13771 requiring that for every new protection, two existing safeguards must be repealed.
- Issued Executive Order 13777 requiring agencies to identify regulations that are burdensome to industry that should be repealed or modified.
- Proposed FY 2020 budget that would slash the Depart- ment of Labor’s budget by 10%. Cut coal mine enforcement & eliminate worker safety & health training programs. Eliminate the Chemical Safety Board and cut NIOSH’s job safety research by $146 million.
DELAYING & WEAKENING PROTECTIONS
- Proposed to weaken OSHA’s new beryllium standard for workers in construction and maritime, after delaying the effective date and enforcement of the rule in all sections.
- Delayed enforcement of OSHA’s silica standard in construction for 90 days until Sept. 23rd, 2017, and full enforcement until Oct. 23rd, 2017, allowing continued high exposures to deadly silica dust.
- Revoked requirement for large employers to report detailed injury data to OSHA after delaying requirement for all employers to submit summary injury data to the agency. Delayed action on new OSHA standards on workplace violence and emergency planning.
- Abandoned work on more than a dozen new OSHA rules including rules on styrene, combustible dust, and noise in construction. Suspended work on new OSHA standards on infectious diseases and process safety management. Withdrew OSHA’s walk around policy that gave nonunion workers the right to have a representative participate in OSHA inspections.
- Reviewing MSHA’s coal dust standard to determine whether it should be modified to be less burdensome on industry. Weakened key provisions of MSHA’s mine examination rule for metal and nonmetal mines after delaying the rule for months.
- Abandoned work on new MSHA’s rules for civil penalties and refuge alternatives in coal mines, and suspended work on new standards on silica and proximity detection systems form mobile mining equipment.
- Proposed to revoke child labor protections for 16 and 17 year olds working in health care that restricted the operation of powered patient lifting devices.
- Delayed EPA’s RMP * (see appendix A) rule to prevent chemical accidents for nearly two years, and then proposed to roll back most of the requirements, putting workers, the public and responders in danger.
- Refused to address worker exposures to methylene chloride, asbestos, and other hazards in implementing the new toxic chemicals control law.
LIMITING ACCESS TO INFORMATION & INPUT
• Stopped posting information on all worker fatalities report- ed to OSHA.
• Refused to make public employee injury data reported to OSHA, even though similar data has been posted on OSHA’s website for years.
• Disbanded OSHA’s Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH) and Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee (WPAC).
Appendix A
H.J.Res.83 – Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to “Clarification of Employer’s Continuing Obligation to Make and Maintain an Accurate Record of Each Recordable Injury and Illness”. 115th Congress (2017-2018)
*Appendix B
Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule. The Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule implements Section 112(r) of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. RMP requires facilities that use extremely hazardous substances to develop a Risk Management Plan. These plans must be revised and resubmitted to EPA every five years. Aug 14, 2019.
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