House Democrats Reintroduce Protecting America’s Workers Act on Worker’s Memorial Day
The Protecting America’s Workers Act was reintroduced by Reps. Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Bobby Scott (D-VA) on Worker’s Memorial Day and seeks to expand the coverage of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act to include the estimated 8 million state and local government workers in 24 states that are not currently covered by the act and increase the financial penalties for “high gravity” OSHA violations. The Protecting America’s Workers Act also seeks to reinstate the Volks Rule, which was repealed from OSHA by President Trump in 2017. The Volks Rule gave OSHA the authority to enforce recordkeeping requirements for work-related injuries and illnesses for five-and-a-half years rather than the 6-month statute of limitations established by OSHA.
The Protecting America’s Workers Act has 12 co-sponsors and seeks to improve safety and health in the workplace by addressing the current shortfalls in OSHA. “Millions of workers still fall outside the law’s protections, weak sanctions fail to provide meaningful incentives for those employers tempted to cut corners on compliance with safety and health standards, and anti-retaliation protections for workers who report unsafe conditions are antiquated and ineffective,” said Rep. Courtney. “As a result, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2021, 5,190 workers lost their lives from job-related traumatic injuries, and nearly 3.2 million workers incurred a serious, non-fatal on-the-job injury or illness. In addition, an estimated 120,000 workers died in 2021 from occupational diseases. Every day, more than 14 workers go to work, never to return home to their families due to a fatal workplace injury.” The Protecting America’s Workers Act was first introduced in April 2004 and has been reintroduced several times since but has yet to advance out of committee.
The Protecting America’s Workers Act authorizes felony penalties against employers who knowingly commit OSHA violations that result in serious injury or death, and extends those penalties to corporate officers and directors. The act will also update the now obsolete consensus standards that were adopted by OSHA in the 1970s, expand the injury and illness records that employers are required to maintain and report, require employers to correct any hazardous conditions in a timely manner, strengthen whistleblower protections, and require OSHA to investigate all deaths and serious injuries in the workplace. The act will also establish rights for family members of workers who were killed on the job and allows them to meet with OSHA investigators and be provided with copies of citations and allow them to make statements before any settlement negotiations.
