[RESCHEDULED] Cal/OSHA’S Revised COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard

Posted on June 10, 2021 by Theresa Jordan

Because the Cal/OSHA Standards Board has just pulled back the revisions to the Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) and will consider other revisions at its June 17^th meeting, we have rescheduled our webinar “Cal/OSHA’s Revised COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard” for June 18, 2021, at 10 a.m. PT.

As background, the Standards Board voted to withdraw the recently approved revised version of the ETS. The Division is going to introduce by Friday June 11^th a new proposed revised ETS that better aligns with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and California Department of Public Health guidance (i.e., no masking for fully vaccinated workers even if there are some unvaccinated people present). The new revised ETS that is expected to issue will be voted on at the Board’s next scheduled meeting on June 17^th and, if approved, go into effect on June 28th. Between now and June 28th, the original ETS remains in effect.

Check out the updated description and register below.

The saga around Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) has taken several bizarre twists and turns. After hurriedly adopting the ETS over Thanksgiving weekend 2020, Cal/OSHA set about this spring to fix some problems with the initial ETS regulatory text. The agency proposed a revised version of the ETS to be considered by the Cal/OSHA Standards Board in late May 2021, but on the eve of that Standards Board meeting, Cal/OSHA pulled it back, purportedly to address the CDC’s updated guidance about masks and distancing for vaccinated workers. Inexplicably, however, Cal/OSHA produced an updated proposed amended ETS that was more onerous, not less.

On June 3, 2021, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board convened a special meeting to consider the revisions to the ETS. The public meeting was long and contentious, with 100+ stakeholders testifying lasting late into the evening. Initially, the Board voted to reject the proposed revisions because the updated ETS ignored the CDC’s science-based guidance on masking and physical distancing for vaccinated individuals and required employers to indefinitely provide scarce N95 respirators to every unvaccinated worker in the state of California. However, a little later that evening, the Board voted to convene a Subcommittee to make the standard “better” and, in an about-face, reconsidered its earlier vote and adopted the proposed revisions in the interim.

Then at a special meeting held on June 9, 2021, the Standards Board voted to withdraw the recently approved revised version of the ETS. The Division is tasked with introducing by June 11th a new proposed revised ETS that better aligns with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and California Department of Public Health guidance (i.e., no masking for fully vaccinated workers even if there are some unvaccinated people present). The new revised ETS will be voted on at the Board’s next scheduled meeting on June 17th and, if approved, go into effect on June 28th. Between now and June 28th, the original ETS remains in effect.

Participants in this webinar will learn about the convoluted rulemaking process that has resulted in the nation’s most onerous COVID-19 regulations, as well as the most recent revisions being considered by the Standards Board at its June 17^th meeting and compliance tips.

Click here to register for the June 18th webinar.

This will be the 9th webinar event in Conn Maciel Carey’s 2021 OSHA Webinar Series. Click here to view our full schedule, detailed program descriptions for all of the webinars in the 2021 OSHA Webinar Series. If you missed any of our past webinars in our annual OSHA Webinar Series, click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel and view our webinar archive.

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