This past Friday, the Sixth Circuit Court ordered the stay on OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) be vacated. OSHA’s website now states:
-
“To account for any uncertainty created by the stay, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion with respect to the compliance dates of the ETS. To provide employers with sufficient time to come into compliance, OSHA will not issue citations for noncompliance with any requirements of the ETS before January 10 and will not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before February 9, so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard. OSHA will work closely with the regulated community to provide compliance assistance.”
To clarify, OSHA will not issue citations for non-compliance related to the ETS before January 10, nor before February 9 for non-compliance of the testing requirements. Although Biden has previously commented about extending the ETS requirements to all employers, currently, only companies with 100 employees or more must comply.
Multiple parties, including states, organizations, and employers, have filed emergency applications to the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the stay.
Under the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (WISHA), the Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) can promulgate an ETS equivalent to or at a higher standard than the federal standard. Last week, Labor and Industries’ Division of Safety and Health Assistant Director shared that they are “monitoring facts on the ground” such as hospitalization and infection rates “to determine actions.”
