David Keeling has been confirmed to lead the Occupational Health and Safety Administration as Deputy Secretary of Labor. The US Senate voted 51-47 to approve its confirmation, along with a block of dozens of other candidates to other federal agencies, Tuesday.
Keeling is the former director of Amazon Road and Transport Safety, a job he left in mid -2013 for consulting, According to Linkedin. He also spent about 36 years working for the United Package Service on various regional security papers and security director before becoming a Vice President of Health and Global Health.
Keeling is happening in the main role of Osha, as the agency works to develop a federal standard aimed at protecting workers from extreme heat. This Regulated rule It aims to require many entrepreneurs to provide workers access to water, rest and shadow. A rule comments were recently expanded until the end of October.
In his role in Osha, Keeling has said that he will prioritize the perspectives of everyday workers, which he learned during his time in UPS.
“The best source of security improvements originates with the people who do the job every day,” he told Prepared observations During its confirmation audience of June 5 in front of the Senate Health, Education, Work and Pensions Committee.
Under his leadership, Keeling said that he would prioritize the updating of some of the Osha’s “obsolete systems and processes”, saying that some standards have “stayed old or unusable in the face of work modernization or technological advances within the workplace.”
He also believes that Osha would benefit from technology and data collection improvements that he said could help better track and measure metrics in an effort to catch security problems before they cause injury or death.
“We need to take advantage of the existing global industry consensus standards that have gone through a much more rigorous review, a regular update and a continuous improvement that many of the existing Osha rules,” he said in his statements.
Some security defense groups, including work safety coalition and the Associated General Contractors, They praised Keeling’s nomination. It National Security Council Called Keeling, “a proven security leader who will help continue the agency’s length to protect the health and well -being of our workers,” and the Teamsters International Brotherhood, which Keeling said to be a member, also applauded his nomination.
However, others, such as the National Labor Law project expressed concerns This Keeling background will take it to the part of business interests for stronger security protections, Particularly for exposure to heat.
During his confirmation audience in June, Keeling said he preferred standards to be established by an industry, not by the government. He described industry -led standards as a more rigorous review process and more frequent updates than some standards established by OSHA.
Sai and Amazon’s executives have taken pressure on federal heat rules, the New York Times reportedAnd both companies have faced recent dating OSHA for heat -related workers’ injuries.
