With Cal/OSHA’s upcoming vote on a two-year regulation for COVID-19 mitigation, it’s raising questions about what will change from the current standards, and how they’ll align with the scheduled termination of California’s State of Emergency in late February.
California’s proposed two-year regulation for workplaces will be voted on in mid-December, and if passed would be in effect from Jan. 1, 2023 through December 2024, Robert Moutrie, policy advocate with the California Chamber of Commerce, told the Northern California Record.
Cal/OSHA has been hearing input from stakeholders – including employers and labor union officials – for several months, and the new regulation is expected to reflect more feasible requirements on outbreak thresholds and record-keeping.
“It’s worth a close look, to see in this world where we’re no longer in a state of emergency what precautions are we maintaining, and what aren’t we maintaining,” Moutrie said. “You're going to see a lot that looks similar, but you are also going to see some key easing of the emergency level precautions that were in effect under the emergency regulation.”
The new regulation also provides increased flexibility in how an employer can comply.
“Though I wouldn't say that safety changes, but the methods which the employer could use have been made more flexible in some places,” Moutrie said.
The draft of the two-year regulation doesn’t include exclusion pay, coinciding with the law signed Sept. 30 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, which ends supplemental COVID-19 sick leave on Dec. 31.
The new regulation also would continue the CDPH order that updates the close contact definition.
“We don’t expect Cal/OSHA to revisit [the new regulation], if passed,” Moutrie said. “Now there’s always the possibility that the California Department of Public Health may issue an order that supersedes the regulation. But on the whole, as we come to December and January this is what employers need to understand, for the next two years.”
Moutrie noted that only three states have a Covid workplace regulation.
“The others are nowhere near as close to complex as ours,” Moutrie said. “And so you should certainly, if you want to avoid citations, keep an eye on the regulation and watch that vote in December.”