President Biden To Nominate Cal/OSHA Chief To Be DOL s Assistant Secretary Of Labor For OSHA - Employment and HR mondaq.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mondaq.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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On April 9, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Douglas L. Parker to be assistant secretary of labor for the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Parker currently serves as chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA).
Before assuming the helm at Cal/OSHA, Parker was the executive director of Worksafe, Inc., a nonprofit advocacy organization working on behalf of lower-wage employees and immigrant workers on issues of workplace safety and health. Parker previously served in the DOL during the Obama administration, including as deputy assistant secretary of labor for policy at the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Parker also worked for the United Mine Workers of America and as a partner of a law firm in Washington, D.C.
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President Joe Biden announced late last week that he intends to nominate Doug Parker as the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Parker has led the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) since 2019 and has made a name for himself prioritizing workplace safety through aggressive enforcement tactics. If confirmed by the Senate, Parker would fill a position that has been vacant since January 2017. OSHA’s stated mission is to “assure safe and healthy working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance,” and the agency is tasked with enforcing a variety of whistleblower and safety regulations. What do employers need to know about the April 9 announcement?
H.R. 2373: The Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act. The bipartisan Bill seeks “
To assist employers providing employment under special certificates issued under section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 in transforming their business and program models to models that support individuals with disabilities through competitive integrated employment, to phase out the use of such special certificates, and for other purposes.”
Subminimum Wage
Under
Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers can apply for special certificates from the U.S. Department of Labor to pay individuals with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage. There is no minimum floor for the hourly wage that an employer can pay an individual with a disability under these certificates.
will be its nominee for the head of federal OSHA.
Mr. Parker previously served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Mr. Parker also served as a member of the Biden-Harris transition team, where he focused on worker health and safety issues, and has held positions as a senior policy advisor and special assistant at the Department of Labor. An attorney, Mr. Parker previously worked as in-house counsel at a labor union.
Most recently, he has served as the Chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health since 2019. In his tenure at CalOSHA, the Agency has aggressively enforced an overbroad and hastily-issued COVID-19 emergency temporary standard, using COVID-19 as a vehicle to force employers to engage in widespread surveillance testing, and to legislate by regulation progressive priorities on wage and hour issues, far beyond the scope of his agency’s safety and health mission.