This week, we were joined by Peg Seminario, Former Director of Occupational Safety and Health for the AFL-CIO from 1990 until her retirement in 2019.
Peg talked about the failure of federal OSHA to protect workers from not issuing an emergency infectious disease standard to not requiring employers to report workplace COVID cases and the general lack of inaction in the early days. She also noted that neither the federal or state governments have established data collection systems to track COVID cases in the workplace.
Recommendations she made for OSHA included issuing an infectious disease emergency standard, using the Illness and Injury Reporting and Record Keeping rule to report COVID cases in the workplace, and, most importantly, aggressively enforcing standards and protections for workers that are already in place.
She emphasized the important role of educating and empowering workers and how local communities can come together to demand change. More than 85 people attended this webinar.
RESOURCES
Here is the NJ DOL factsheet on COVID-19 Scenarios & Benefits Available
Join WEC at COSHCON 2020 hosted by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health December 1 – 3 and 8 – 10.