Among the agencies at the U.S. Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), to some people’s surprise, has been fairly quiet and not getting much attention. That will change, however, if OSHA moves forward with a new regulation that was listed in the “Fall 2022” regulatory agenda that was released in January 2023. OSHA has indicated it plans to conduct a rulemaking that will result in union officials being able to accompany OSHA inspectors on walk-around inspections at non-union locations. The agenda said this would be out by May, although agencies frequently miss their regulatory agenda targets.
Under President Obama, OSHA attempted to institute this policy by issuing a letter of interpretation, requested by the United Steelworkers union, which was easily rescinded during the Trump administration. This would have represented a dramatic change in OSHA policy, going directly against regulations that made clear any third-party representative accompanying an OSHA inspector “shall be” an employee of the company, with limited exceptions for technical expertise such as an industrial hygienist or other safety specialist. A union representative, where the employees were not represented by a union, would have been anything but a safety related specialist.
At the time, one of the main arguments against OSHA’s action was that it was beyond the level of change that could be done through mere guidance such as a letter of interpretation—it...
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