by Mike Horowitz

For most of the last four years, OSHA has insisted that a union representative who is not your employee can participate in OSHA inspections at your work site. This spring, that changed when OSHA finally reversed this much-criticized policy.

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee this week, Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta emphasized OSHA’s future focus on compliance assistance to employers and said OSHA had abandoned Obama-era policies on “joint employers.”

Perhaps signaling that OSHA may be turning more toward cooperative and compliance assistance programs under the Trump administration, as many in industry have hoped, OSHA announced this week that it will hold a public meeting to receive suggestions from stakeholders on how to strengthen its Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP).

by Erik Dullea and Sonia Anderson

Department of Labor press releases issued during April suggest that DOL, including OSHA and MSHA, may have returned to the aggressive public relations strategy of calling out companies by name, which was utilized during the previous administration.  Former head of OSHA, Dr. David Michaels, reportedly called this strategy “regulation by shaming.”