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Law360 (May 27, 2020, 1:29 PM EDT) -- New federal guidance aimed at bolstering construction workers' safety during the COVID-19 pandemic advises employers to keep in-person meetings as short as possible, assess the risk of coronavirus exposure posed by a job site before entering and stagger employees' work schedules.
The DOL issued new guidance Tuesday on construction job safety during the coronavirus pandemic. (iStock.com/Ana M Amortegui)
Employers should closely monitor coronavirus outbreak conditions, including the availability of testing, the guidance says. The guidance does not offer an opinion on whether workers should get tests.
The guidance arrives amid escalating calls for OSHA to order employers to protect workers from the coronavirus by issuing an emergency temporary standard.
Such standards are issued "when workers are in grave danger due to exposure to toxic substances or agents," according to an OSHA description. Emergency temporary standards go into effect immediately and remain in place while under review to become a permanent standard, the agency said.
The AFL-CIO has called OSHA's refusal to issue an emergency temporary standard addressing safety in the workplace during COVID-19 "an abuse of agency discretion so blatant and of 'such magnitude' as to amount to a clear 'abdication of statutory responsibility.'"
The union and others have formally petitioned OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard and asked a federal court to compel the agency to do so.
But OSHA has so far only issued nonbinding guidance, including Tuesday's advice for the construction industry. OSHA has specified that its COVID-19 guidance creates no legal obligations.
In addition to providing safety advice for construction workers, Tuesday's guidance classifies industry tasks by level of risk of coronavirus exposure. Low-risk tasks allow employees to work six feet apart, while high-risk tasks place workers in contact with people suspected to have the coronavirus, the guidance says.
--Additional reporting by Braden Campbell. Editing by Marygrace Murphy.
Update: This story has been updated with additional information.
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