OSHA's updated guidance tracks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) July 27, 2021, mask and testing recommendations for all employees-including those already fully vaccinated. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published updated guidance aimed at further mitigating and preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. Nobody benefits from this inconsistent uncertainty.The U.S. Cal/OSHA’s logic suggests the COVID-19 virus can distinguish between workers and guests – truly absurd. After his shift, the server could become a guest at the very same restaurant he works and not wear a mask while dining. Under Cal/OSHA’s ruling, the following scenario is very real: A restaurant server, in his role as an employee, is mandated to wear a mask while working. This jumble of conflicting health care information is likely to pit employees on colleagues - many of whom are exhausted from following mask-wearing guidance for more than a year – to become “vaccine bullies.” The result is hotels and other workplaces are at risk as they enforce a policy that doesn’t match those of other highly respected regulators. The rules contradict what Newsom, the California Department of Public Health and, importantly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are allowing. Employers are required now to wade into the minefield of determining who is vaccinated and who is not.
Cal/OSHA puts the burden of vaccine and mask enforcement on all businesses with little guidance as to how that can be done while adhering to privacy policies. This cumbersome regulatory process and failure to follow the science has consequences, and they will be immediate. Gavin Newsom has pronounced that California is supposed to open up and go in the opposite direction. By the way, the new regulation takes effect June 15, the very same day Gov. And to add to the confusion, the board immediately appointed a three-person subcommittee to revise the approved rules as soon as possible. Only hours earlier, the board rejected the same rules. On Thursday, the Standards Board of the California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, which governs workplace safety rules, made a mockery of its regulatory role by not following science, and perhaps most importantly, not using common sense.įully out of sync with mask-wearing guidance from most federal and state agencies that are following COVID-19 data, the Standards Board passed rules that mandate if anyone in a workplace is unvaccinated, all colleagues must wear masks when in the same room, but allows workers to not wear masks when everyone in a room is vaccinated. Those that follow the facts – be they politicians, legislatures, regulators, businesses or individuals – are much better off today than those that don’t.Īs an association that supports California’s 6,000 hotels and their 235,000 employees, the California Hotel and Lodging Association has been acutely engaged throughout the pandemic with federal, state and local health leaders to provide our guests and workers with the best safety protocols that scientific data provides. That has been the watchword throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
0 kommentar(er)
