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Law360 (June 25, 2020, 7:05 PM EDT) -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday issued a blueprint on how seafood processors should operate as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, detailing how employers should screen, separate and protect onshore and offshore workers.
The new guidance outlines how seafood workers, while not at increased risk for COVID-19 due to handling seafood products, should still be provided with special accommodations like separate sleeping arrangements, flexible work schedules to allow for social distancing and personal protective equipment, especially while on vessels at sea.
In addition to reiterating previous guidance by the agencies — such as conducting assessments of hazards that increase risk of occupational exposure, isolating sick workers, maintaining proper hygiene and social distancing — the agency also encouraged employers to have vessels ready for infected workers to be taken for medical evaluation and treatment.
"It is imperative that workers in the seafood processing industry are protected from coronavirus exposure in their workplace," OSHA's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Loren Sweatt said in a statement.
John Connelly, the president of the National Fisheries Institute, said the guidance is "in keeping with the best practices recognized by the industry for COVID-prevention controls."
"The seafood industry-specific guidance reiterates that seafood-processing workers are not exposed to the disease through the fish and seafood products they handle," Connelly said in a statement. "It provides useful tools to minimize hazards for workers who come in relatively close contact with each other and may raise exposure risk factors."
The guidelines come as some have called for commercial fishing in certain parts of the country to be shut down as the pandemic rages forward.
In May, public health experts and native leaders slammed Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy's decision to allow commercial fishing this summer. The Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation, which serves 28 villages in southwestern Alaska, called on the governor to shut down commercial salmon fisheries for the high season of June and July to prevent a potential influx of COVID-19 cases that the hospital says it's not equipped to handle.
Thursday's tips add to a growing list of guidelines for pharmacy, retail and delivery workers on the front lines of the pandemic, instructing employers to clean surfaces and use drive-through windows to help prevent the virus' spread.
But OSHA has been under fire by some lawmakers, workers' advocates and unions that say the workplace safety watchdog is dropping the ball on workers by only administering nonbinding guidelines.
Sweatt said during a congressional hearing in May that the agency had issued one citation related to the pandemic, saying it is a challenge to build cases that will withstand court scrutiny. Safety advocates have said the agency's actions only demonstrate its loose enforcement approach.
The agency has also faced litigation that sought to force it to issue an emergency safety rule requiring employers to protect workers from COVID-19. The D.C. Circuit on June 11 tossed a lawsuit by the AFL-CIO seeking to do just that, citing "considerable deference" the court owes the agency.
--Additional reporting by Braden Campbell and Emma Whitford. Editing by Steven Edelstone.
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