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Orlando, FLA. – Since the rules of Walkaround and the heat rules proposed to a vacant review commission and a new president with new priorities, he has changed a lot in the world of workplace in recent months.
A presentation this week during the American Society of Safety Professional 2025 Conference + Expo tried to give birth to these topics and more. Here are some of the important topics they played:
Thermal safety standard
Last summer, under former President Joe Biden, Osha proposed a standard Around heat injuries and disease prevention. Entrepreneurs decreed the rule, saying that it was too heavy and too wide. Many regretted acclimatization requirements and the lack of specific guidance in geography.
When President Donald Trump entered the White House For the second time, it seemed that the rule would fade away. That is, to a series of Osha Audiences this summer suggested In a second potential life for a rule, though a dramatically edited.
“When Trump was elected, I think I was among the first to say,” I think we should move forward with some rule, “said Heather Macdougall, a corporate security lawyer and former Amazon Security Vice President.
MacDougall, who represented the United States Chamber of Commerce in Audiences on the thermal Safety Rule, and others emphasized the value of a standard heat rule that is based on performance: to measure the capacity of businessmen to create and follow a plan to protect workers, instead of a detailed prescriptive plan that can be difficult to fulfill.
To achieve this plan, Macdougall said, it may be best to advance the rule under Trump or another administration that respects businesses, rather than in a white house in Democrats.
Jim Frederick, director of Washington, the DC-based consulting firm, Nexushse and former Deputy Secretary of Osha under Biden, worked at the agency at the time of development of the proposed rule. As a result, he could not speak with the content of the rule at the presentation on Tuesday.
However, he praised the number of businesses and groups of employees who responded to the rule with a detailed contribution as “phenomenal” and emphasized the extent to which industries have come to recognize the danger.
A decade ago, Frederick said, he felt that “we are not, we cannot, we cannot do it” in terms of creating a safer work environment in response to high temperatures.
“The conversation has changed dramatically around heat safety,” he said.
Walkaround rule
Biden’s Osha also published and promulgated the employee’s Walkaround ruleWhich expanded the categories of people who could act as workers’ representatives and accompany an Osha inspector in a job.
The purpose of the rule was to clarify a long -term interpretation and to clarify the “strong point of the idea that the law Osh gives the right to employees to walk during an inspection,” said Frederick.
But opponents to the rule say it increases Responsibility and security questionsAnd it can open the door to representatives of third parties at the workplace, which otherwise would not take place.
MacDougall, however, was questioned by the Walkaround rule, in disagreement with Osha’s statement that this was a clarification. She believes that the language goes far beyond that and that the rule violates the right of an entrepreneur to prevent third parties outside the federal government from accessing a job.
The rule was immediately challenged in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, and both MacDougall and Frederick say they say anticipate —Se of its legality Soon.
Other changes
Currently, all three seats are vacant in the Occupational Safety and Safety Review Commission, an independent agency that issues decisions when OSHA Dating or penalties are disputed. MacDougall said this means that the challenges that happened before Oshrc expired after 30 days, before the cases were sent to an appeal court.
Along Trump named Jon SnareThe Department of Labor Passing in March, in March, has not yet been approved, and this would not still leave Quorum, according to Bloomberg.
“I am concerned that this is an approach to letting the review commission take place in the vineyard,” said Macdougall, former President of the Commission designated during the first Trump administration.
Another recent development of Osha saw that the agency intended to change the Application for the General Duties clause For athletic and entertainment occupations, derived from a decision around a 2014 SEAWORLD Court case, where the current supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh dissentia, which indicates that the strike writing of the clause did not give Osha the authority to eliminate obviously dangerous aspects of a profession.
The change, for the moment, seems to focus on these sectors, but Frederick said he understood the point of view that the agency could expand -to other professions, such as construction, based on the writing of the proposal.
