Outlining the Protecting America's Workers Act

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education & Labor
The Protecting America’s Workers Act will strengthen and modernize the Occupational Safety and Health Act, our nation’s law that ensures the health and safety of American workers. Significant progress has been made on protecting the health and safety of American workers since the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration almost four decades ago. According to studies, nearly 400,000 workers’ lives have been saved as a result. 

However, too many workers are still dying, getting injured or become ill by working in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. The Protecting America’s Workers Act will provide additional tools to ensure that OSHA can fulfill its duty enforce safe and healthy workplaces for all American workers.

Specifically, the Protecting America’s Workers Act:
 
Protects More Workers
  • Expands OSHA coverage to include state and local public employees and federal government workers.
  • Expands coverage to millions of other workers inadequately covered such as airline and railroad employees, and Department of Energy contractors.
Strengthens Health and Safety Penalties
  • Raises civil penalties and indexes those penalties to inflation.  
  • Establishes mandatory minimum penalties for violations involving worker deaths. 
  • Allows felony prosecutions against employers who commit willful violations that result in death or serious bodily injury, and extends such penalties to responsible corporate officers.    
  • Requires OSHA to investigate all cases of death and serious injuries (i.e. incidents that result in the hospitalization of 2 or more employees).
Improves Whistleblower Protections
  • Codifies regulations that give workers the right to refuse to do hazardous work.  
  • Clarifies that employees cannot be discriminated against for reporting injuries, illnesses or unsafe conditions, and brings the procedures for investigating and adjudicating discrimination complaints into line with other safety and health and whistleblower laws.
Allows Workers and Their Families to Hold Dangerous Employers Accountable
  • Provides workers and employee representatives the right to contest OSHA’s failure to issue citations, classification of its citations, and proposed penalties. 
  • Gives injured workers, their families and families of workers who died in work-related incidents the right to meet with investigators, receive copies of citations, and to have an opportunity to make a statement before any settlement negotiations.
  • Clarifies that the time spent by an employee accompanying an OSHA inspector during an investigation is considered time worked, for which a worker must be compensated. 
  • Prohibits OSHA from designating a citation as an “unclassified citation” where an employer can avoid the potential consequences of a “willful” violation, the most serious violation. 
  • Allows any worker or their representative to object to a modification or withdrawal of a citation, and entitles them to a hearing before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.