Letter to Hon. Joseph Biden, President of the United States and Hon. Martin Walsh, Secretary of Labor - Gillibrand Leads 20 Colleagues In Calling On Biden Administration To Continue And Make Permanent OSHA's Emergency Covid-19 Protections For Health Care Workers; Protections Have Been Allowed To Lapse

Letter

Dear President Biden and Secretary Walsh,

Following the announcement in late December of the withdrawal of the non-recordkeeping portions of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) COVID-19 Health Care Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), we write to urge the Department of Labor to take all necessary steps to expeditiously issue a permanent standard to protect our nation's health care workers in the workplace. Particularly in the context of rising COVID-19 caseloads stemming from the spread of the Omicron variant, our nation's health care workers deserve a permanent, enforceable standard that will ensure their health and safety as they continue to work on the front lines of the pandemic response.

OSHA's June 21 ETS protected health care workers, who have shouldered the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergency temporary standard, which requires employers to implement plans to identify and control COVID-19 hazards in the workplace, helped to ensure that workers had access to effective personal protective equipment (PPE) and adequate ventilation systems, and ensured workers were notified of workplace exposures to COVID-19, providing critical protections against the risks frontline health care workers face every day in their workplaces. We were encouraged by the administration's commitment to protecting health care workers through emergency protections by providing a clear standard detailing employers' responsibilities to their workers.

Accordingly, we were deeply troubled by OSHA's announcement on December 27 that the agency would remove these protections without a permanent standard in place, while at the same time the agency acknowledged health care workers remain in grave danger from exposure to COVID-19. Though the agency contends that the terms of the ETS remain "relevant in general duty cases in that they show that COVID-19 poses a hazard in the healthcare industry," we are concerned that the lapse of the temporary standard signals that OSHA no longer retains the necessary robust enforcement authority to provide adequate protections for health care workers, nor will there be a standard to provide adequate transparency or predictability for employees and their employers in evaluating health care workplace practices.

We are writing to urge you to move forward with a permanent, enforceable standard that would require employers to protect workers in health care settings and to keep the emergency protections in place until a permanent standard is issued, which should be accomplished as expeditiously as possible. Given the emergence and rapid spread of the Omicron variant, health care workers need to retain strong, enforceable protections now; these protections cannot lapse. This is necessary to adequately address the emergency context of the present situation health care workers are facing.

Sincerely,