What OSHA’s recent regulatory initiatives mean for the construction industry

By Michael Metz-Topodas, Cohen Seglias

Starting 2021 under a new administration promised significant changes to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and enforcement, especially with the agency confronting a deadly and omnipresent virus. And the year unfolded as expected—at least for new safety requirements. Despite a focus on COVID-19, OSHA implemented several other regulatory changes that impacted the construction industry, and these recent initiatives may provide insight on future policy and enforcement in several key construction workplace areas.

The Emergency Temporary Standard Vaccine Mandate

Commentators have spilled vast amounts of ink about OSHA’s vaccine mandate in the emergency temporary standard issued in November 2021 (the ETS). Multiple injunction actions and appeals challenged and defended this rule, culminating in a final petition on the ETS’s validity to the Supreme Court. In a January 13, 2022 decision, the Court stayed enforcing the ETS, ruling that OSHA acted outside its proper scope of authority in issuing the rule, but not foreclosing other, perhaps narrower, emergency temporary standards or final rules aimed at protecting workers from COVID-19 exposure.

A Small Change in COVID-19 Reporting with Major Implications

The ETS also contained a minor, almost imperceptible, change in workplace injury and illness reporting requirements. Previously, under a Trump administration regulation, employers needed to record and report an employer’s COVID-19 hospitalization or death as a workplace illness if the employer could reasonably establish that the infection more than likely occurred from work-related activity. The prior policy’s “more than likely standard” acknowledged that employers lacked resources to determine whether an infection occurred at work, other than in very clear circumstances. Now, however, employers covered under the ETS must report any employer COVID-19 hospitalization or death using the same “work-related” criteria used for any other injury or illness: whether an “event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed” to the infection or if COVID-19 exposure “likely occurred in the work environment.” In making this determination, an employer must consider these factors: 

• the type, extent, and duration of the employee’s work environment contact with other people, particularly the general public;
• workplace controls, such as physical distancing, that impact the likelihood of work-related exposure; 
• the time spent in a shared indoor space with limited ventilation; and 
• whether the employee had work-related contact with anyone who exhibited signs and symptoms of COVID-19. 

This slight modification in reporting requirement creates for employers a nearly impossible task—determining whether an infection resulted from work activity. In attempting to comply, employers face a no-win dilemma. If they determine an employee COVID-19 hospitalization or death did not result from work-related conditions, and OSHA investigates and concludes otherwise, employers risk citations for failure to report. If, however, to ensure compliance, they treat all COVID-19 employee hospitalizations or deaths as work-related and report them, employers risk additional workers’ compensation claims, a tainted safety record, an increased EMR, and raised insurance premiums. Additionally, employers must report a work-related employee death from COVID-19 any time after the workplace event leading to the COVID-19 infection, whereas this reporting obligation ends 30 days after all other incidents.

Potential New Electronic Reporting Requirements

An intended notice of proposed rulemaking signaled that OSHA may seek to return to the original standards for its electronic reporting requirements for workplace injuries and illnesses. When originally introduced, the rule required that for employer establishments with more than 250 employees or those with over 20 employees in certain high risk industries (such as construction), they must electronically submit to OSHA information from Form 300A, which contains yearly summary data of workplace injuries and illnesses. As written, the rule also required establishments with over 250 employees to submit electronically data from Forms 300 (safety incident log) and 301 (safety incident reports). OSHA, however, never enforced this requirement for data from Forms 300 and 301 and eventually amended the rule to require only Form 300A information. In December 2021, however, OSHA announced it intended via a notice of proposed rulemaking to restore the original requirement to submit Form 300 and 301 data. The agency has provided no information about how it would address the objections that led to eliminating this requirement in the first place: submitted data revealed confidential business information and personally identifiable information, including medical information; and publicized data led to unjustified conclusions about company safety as not all incidents mean a safety problem exists. If OSHA does not address these concerns in the new rule, it likely will face challenges from multiple industries, including construction.

Proposed Heat Hazards Protections

OSHA is also directing its attention to workplace heat hazards and heat illness in both outdoor and indoor settings. On October 27, 2021, the agency issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to initiate a public comment period. During this time, employers can submit information and issues for OSHA to consider in developing a heat hazard and illness standard. The final rule will likely set a heat index of 80°F or higher as the trigger for employers to implement heat hazard protections and controls, a threshold some state safety regulations already use. Previously, OSHA used the general duty clause (GDC) to address unsafe work conditions from excessive heat, but often GDC citations are vulnerable to being vacated by courts due to insufficient precision about what constitutes the violation. Setting more precise heat hazard standards, however, becomes challenging due to the variety of workplace environments. Any new regulations will need to account for variations in the cumulative and interactive effects temperature, humidity, cloud cover, and other weather factors can have. Additionally, high heat can impact strenuous manual labor workers, such as warehouse loaders, much differently from those in more stationary roles, such as parking lot attendants. Temperatures that warrant hazard controls will differ depending upon acclimation to climate—a 95°F day has a more profound impact in Seattle than Phoenix. The new rule will also need to consider individual worker conditions. 

In addition to implementing novel standards, OSHA intends to implement an enforcement initiative that will prioritize inspections and interventions on days 80°F or higher. Finally, a national emphasis program will create a Heat Illness Prevention focus group within the National Advisory Commission on Occupational Safety and Health. Construction industry stakeholders have expressed concern about the proposed new rules because they could require a heat effect analysis to determine both a permissible exposure level and an action level for each aspect of work. In that way, a new heat hazard requirement threatens to add significant costs to any construction project for all involved—from owners to contractors to suppliers.

The team at Cohen Seglias will continue to monitor these and other developments in OSHA regulations and enforcement to assess the effects on compliance and performing projects. Contractors facing such issues should contact their counsel who remain knowledgeable and up-to-date on these developments.

About the Author

Michael Metz-Topodas is a partner at Cohen Seglias. As a construction litigator, he represents general contractors, subcontractors, owners, designers, and suppliers through all stages of private, public, and federal projects helping clients navigate all kinds of construction project disputes. His practice also focuses on OSHA compliance and citation defense in the construction industry. He can be reached at mmt@cohenseglias.com and 267.238.4755.