by Emily Lyons
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a checklist to assist human and animal food operations during the COVID-19 public health emergency. The checklist is useful for firms growing, harvesting, packing, manufacturing, processing, or holding human and animal food regulated by FDA
by Sydney Buckley
With scientists worldwide racing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, many employers are asking if they can require employees to be vaccinated. As with everything COVID-19, there are many open questions, but here are some of the major legal issues in considering mandatory vaccination policies.
Our popular ACRI course for mine supervisors, executives, and managers to learn how to minimize MSHA liability is going virtual! Next month, Husch Blackwell is partnering once again with Predictive Compliance and Catamount Consulting to offer a two-day, intensive, live online course titled Alternative Case Resolution Initiative: Defending and Winning MSHA Litigation.
Though the mining industry uses about 90% of explosives in the United States, neither ATF’s regulations nor its personnel generally come from mining. Nonetheless, ATF and the mining industry generally have worked together well as partners. Issues do sometimes arise, however, such as recent ATF actions on underground explosives storage magazines.
NIOSH and MSHA collaborated recently to publish more resources to mitigate miner exposure to COVID-19. The materials include a web page with guidance for staying healthy, as well as posters, all provided on both MSHA’s and the CDC’s web sites.
While many employers consider whether and how to use COVID-19 tests of different kinds to help clear employees to return to work, the EEOC has clarified that not all tests are created equal in its eyes. Our partner, Barbara Grandjean, reports on the latest EEOC guidance.
COVID-19 has hit small and medium-sized businesses, and even regional companies, especially hard. On top of losing customers, trying to make payroll and rent, and being squeezed on either end, they have fewer resources to become experts on how to keep their workers safe. Many feel that they simply do not have the time or money to analyze pages of federal and state guidance and prepare detailed return-to-work plans. But, it need not be this way. We’ve got a solution.
Despite the best of intentions to comply with the myriad of laws, orders and recommendations and to “do right” by employees while dealing with the current pandemic and recession, employers remain vulnerable to a whole host of potential COVID-19-related claims. Ever-changing guidance and return-to-work orders complicate the issues. Keeping abreast of the actual and potential
As companies plan to reopen, we’re getting lots of questions about how to prepare for workers wearing cloth face masks, as advised by the CDC and now required by some jurisdictions. Should your employees wear masks? Must they? What do you need to know to do this right? Here is our summary of key questions and answers.
In the return-to-work phase, many companies will choose to screen employees by taking temperatures with no-contact thermometers. These devices can be important tools, but there are some important details to consider as you choose devices and implement policies.