OSHA Law Blog : Occupational Safety Lawyer & Attorney : Jackson Lewis Law Firm : Health, OSHA Compliance

Employers may be required to provide seven days of paid sick time per year under a bill introduced in Congress.  The measure, titled the Pandemic Protection for Workers, Families, and Businesses Act (H.R. 4092/S. 2790), was introduced by Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) in the House and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) in the Senate on the heels of another emergency paid sick leave bill proposed earlier.  If passed, the Pandemic Protection Act would be a temporary law that expires two years from enactment.

Under the proposal, employees would be entitled to paid sick time off due to a contagious illness or to care for a child with a contagious illness.  It seeks to contain the spread of H1N1 and other influenza strains by ensuring sick employees can stay home from work without financial sacrifice from loss of work.

The Pandemic Protection Act would require most employers with 15 or more employees to provide full-time employees with seven days of paid sick time to be used for the following reasons:

• The employee or his or her child is experiencing symptoms of a contagious illness, such as the 2009 H1N1 virus or other influenza-like illness, including time off for medical and preventive care;
• A health authority or health care provider has determined that the employee’s presence at work or the child’s presence in the community would expose others to a contagious illness; or
• The employee’s worksite or the child’s school, child care or early childhood program has been closed due to a contagious influenza-like illness.

Part-time employees would be entitled to a pro-rata share of paid sick days.  Employees must have worked for their employer for 30 days before they are covered under the bill.

If the Act becomes law, employers’ existing paid time off (PTO) policies may need to be modified.  According to the bill, employers who already provide seven days of paid sick leave that “may be used for the same purposes and under the same conditions as the purposes and conditions [covered in the legislation] shall not be required to provide additional paid sick time…”  It is unclear what effect the legislation would have on PTO plans that allot a certain amount of time off without specifying the permitted purposes of use.  The proposal also leaves unanswered the question whether an employee who has exhausted his or her PTO allotment would be entitled to paid leave for the reasons in the bill.

Regardless of the outcome of this paid sick leave measure, employers should develop and implement contingency plans to address widespread absences due to pandemic illness in the workplace.

Carrie Jabinsky drafted this blog post.

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released an analysis of OSHA's efforts to ensure that work-related injuries and illnesses are properly recorded by employers.  Members of Congress had requested that the GAO determine (1) whether DOL verifies that employers are accurately recording workers' injuries and illnesses and, if so, the adequacy of these efforts, and (2) what factors may affect the accuracy of employers' injury and illness records.  The GAO study is another piece of the "under-recording puzzle" that is the focus of great attention by OSHA.

The GAO concludes that there are several deficiencies in OSHA's recordkeeping audit verification program in terms of the ability of the audits to determine if employers are accurately recording injuries and illnesses that occur at the worksite:

• OSHA does not always require inspectors to interview workers about injuries and illnesses.
• Many workers are no longer employed at the worksite and therefore cannot be interviewed. 
• OSHA does not review the accuracy of injury and illness records for worksites in eight high hazard industries because it has not updated the codes used to identify the industries in its recordkeeping rule.

The GAO also identifies disincentives to workers reporting injuries and illnesses, including fear of job loss or other disciplinary action and fear of jeopardizing rewards based on having low injury and illness rates.  The GAO also surveys U.S. health practitioners and concludes that over a third of them have been subjected to pressure from employers or workers to provide insufficient medical treatment to avoid the need to record injuries or illnesses.

In response to its findings, the GAO makes four recommendations to OSHA:

• Require inspectors to interview workers during records audits and substitute other workers when those initially selected are unavailable.
• Minimize the time between the date injuries and illnesses are recorded by employers and the date they are audited.
• Update the list of high hazard industries used to select worksites for records audits.
• Increase education and training to help employers better understand the recordkeeping requirements.

OSHA agreed with all the recommendations.   It stated that it would require inspectors to interview employees during records audits and develop policies to conduct audits in a timely fashion.  It also stated that it would pursue rulemaking to update the industry coverage of the recordkeeping rule from SIC codes to NAICS codes.  Finally, it committed to supplement its current outreach efforts on recordkeeping compliance.

Of course, OSHA has also implemented its Recordkeeping NEP, which will focus OSHA enforcement resources on investigating the extent to which employers are under-recording injuries and illnesses.

Employers must take steps now to ensure that they have been, and are, accurately recording injuries and illnesses that occur at work.   

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OSHA's Recordkeeping National Emphasis Program (NEP) has been in effect for over a month and employers should be taking steps now to review their records and prepare for an NEP inspection.

Click here for an article that can assist in the preparation process.  "Are You Prepared for OSHA's Recordkeeping National Emphasis Program?," which just appeared in Workforce Management, describes the NEP and some recordkeeping best practices.  Implementation of these best practices can help ensure that employers are fully compliant with their OSHA recordkeeping obligations.   

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As concern over H1N1 and influenza-related illnesses continues to spread, legislation that would require employers to provide up to five days of paid sick leave per year to workers afflicted with influenza or other, similar contagious illness has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill applies to employers with 15 or more employees where workers comply with the employer’s directive to go home or stay home from work because of a contagious illness. The proposed legislation, titled the Emergency Influenza Containment Act (H.R. 3991), was introduced by House Education and Labor Committee leader Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.) and Workforce Protections Subcommittee leader Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Cal.).

If passed, the bill would apply to both full time and part time employees who are “directed” or “advised” to leave work or not come in “because the employer believes the employee has symptoms of a contagious illness, or has been in close contact with an individual who has symptoms of a contagious illness.” Contagious illness is defined in the legislation and includes “influenza-like-illnesses,” such as H1N1.

Covered employees would be entitled to an amount of paid sick leave calculated based on the employee's regular rate of pay and scheduled hours of work. Small employers and companies that already provide five or more paid sick days per year would be exempt from the bill’s requirements.  The measure also would prohibit employers from firing, disciplining, or retaliating against workers who comply with the employer’s directive to stay home or not come to work.

The Emergency Influenza Containment Act may move quickly as a result of mounting concerns regarding influenza-related illnesses. The House Education and Labor Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the legislation during the week of November 16. The Emergency Influenza Containment Act would expire two years from enactment.

Carrie Jabinsky drafted this post.

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