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More than half of employers cited for COVID-19 safety problems by federal OSHA authorities have appealed, according to a Reuters analysis of OSHA enforcement data. That compares to 8% of fined companies that appealed in the five years before the pandemic, according to OSHA data. During the appeals – which can drag on for years – companies don’t have to pay fines and aren’t required to fix problems identified by OSHA inspectors.
The payment delays follow the agency’s larger failure to hold employers accountable for unsafe conditions during the pandemic, a Reuters special report revealed in January. Reuters identified dozens of workplaces where employees complained of slipshod pandemic safety around the time of outbreaks – and regulators never inspected the facilities or, in some cases, took months to do so. (For full story, click https://reut.rs/3jC2hQf )
A key U.S. senator is calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate N95 mask fraud and federal agents announced the seizure of 1.7 million more counterfeit 3M masks in the New York borough of Queens as the breadth of a major scam concerning front-line health workers continues to grow.
Early Thursday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), on her first day as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, said she would ask the Federal Trade Commission to look into 1.9 million counterfeits shipped to hospitals in Washington state. The state hospital association announced earlier in the week that law enforcement had notified them that they d been sold fake N95s branded as 3M products.