Opinion: The federal government has the power to protect doctors, nurses, delivery workers and other “essential personnel” on the pandemic front lines. It’s time to use it.
who have died from Covid-19 after their employers failed to implement appropriate infection control measures or provide the adequate respiratory protection or sanitary facilities needed to prevent exposure in the course of their work.
Yet OSHA, the federal agency under the Department of Labor charged with protecting these workers, is almost completely missing from the federal response to theInstead of pressing employers on worker safety, Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia and President Donald Trump’s political appointees at the Labor Department have decided to tell workers there is little OSHA can do because it has no standard covering airborne infectious diseases.
Existing OSHA regulations require a minimal effort of employers, such as providing soap and water, but I have yet to hear anyone from the Labor Department or the White House announce this fact to the public. Instead, workers in a wide range of industries who face the risk of fatal infection have taken matters into their own hands,OSHA can, and should, be front and center in our efforts to protect these truly essential workers.
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