Source: MEATINGPLACE, 2/19/18


Four members of Congress have requested that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reconsider its rejection of Government Accounting Office (GAO) health and safety recommendations for workers in meat and poultry plants — or explain its rationale for not doing so.

In a Jan. 31 letter sent to Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, the four Congress members — Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) — raised several concerns about the agency’s response to the GAO recommendations. Specifically, following the Nov. 17, 2017 publication of the GAO report advising OSHA and other agencies to ensure that workers are allowed bathroom access and complaint confidentiality, OSHA declined to take the advice, the congress members said in a press release.

“GAO conducted interviews with workers in 'five states who said their requests to use the bathroom are often delayed or denied’ and with workers 'in three states [who] said they had suffered negative health effects, such as kidney problems, from delayed or denied bathroom breaks,’” they wrote. “Despite this, OSHA officials told GAO that 'they [do] not believe lack of bathroom access [is] a widespread problem’ in the meat and poultry industry.”

They also called for the OSHA to explain its rejection of the GAO’s recommendation to conduct inspection fact-finding interviews or complaint investigations with workers offsite, despite OSHA’s longstanding practice of doing so.

“Given OSHA’s statutory mandate to assure safe workplaces so far as possible,” the congress members wrote. “It is imperative that OSHA adopt these two commonsense measures: asking workers about bathroom access and conducting offsite interviews. This could help prevent injury and illness among particularly vulnerable workers.”

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