The Biden-Harris Administration: Four Years of Prioritizing Worker Safety

In October and November, BAC members in the United States will cast their ballot along with their fellow citizens. There are many issues that are important to every voter. For those of us in construction for whom workplace safety is a priority, the BAC Safety and Health Department put together a few key points for consideration:

WORKER PROTECTIONS FROM RISING HEAT

The Labor Department, led by the Biden-Harris Administration, has proposed a new rule to protect workers from extreme heat (tinyurl.com/ye22x7x6). This rule is crucial for keeping BAC members, and all workers, safe during extreme heat events as they become more common.

WORKER FOCUSED OSHA

During the Trump Administration, the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors and OSHA inspections dropped drastically. In January 2019, OSHA stated that they employed 875 compliance officers, down from 952 in 2016. The number of inspectors directly correlates with the number of workplaces that can be inspected and citations issued to employers. Inspectors on staff were cut to 870 in April 2019, the lowest number of compliance officers in OSHA’s history. As a result, according to a 2019 report, there was only one OSHA inspector for every 79,000 workers in the US. At that staffing level, OSHA only had enough inspectors to inspect workplaces once every 165 years.

After the Biden-Harris administration took over, by the end of 2023, OSHA had 878 inspectors, an 11% increase from the Trump Administration. The agency conducted 31,820 total inspections in 2022, a 30.8% increase from 2021.

Under the new Worker Walkaround Rule (tinyurl.com/ 2jphf6yd), OSHA inspectors can also permit union representatives to join walkaround inspections on non-union sites to ensure that safety standards are being met on those worksites.

STRENGTHENED PROTECTIONS AGAINST HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS

On March 1, 2024, the EPA, under the direction of the Biden-Harris Administration, finalized its amendments to the Risk Management Program Rule to reduce the threat of chemical accidents. The Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Rule (tinyurl.com/5y259wac) requires stronger measures for prevention, preparedness, and public transparency, including searching for safer technologies and frameworks for safety processes. It also includes stop work authority and increases worker participation and training in safety decisions.

PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS

Thanks to the Biden-Harris led Department of Labor, there is now a federal requirement to use Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) on construction projects receiving federal funding.

PLAs require every contractor on a jobsite to pay the wages and benefits negotiated in the applicable local union contract, and abide by the safety standards in those contracts. This means BAC members get more work on federal jobs and all work is done at high safety standards. But if Donald Trump wins the election, he plans to ban federal PLAs.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s actions noted above make construction workers safer, but they didn’t stop at correcting the mistakes of the previous administration — they are actively working to address concerns around worker safety that the Trump Administration never considered. For example, OSHA has launched the first ever effort to establish a national workplace heat standard — an increasingly prevalent hazard that Trump’s OSHA neglected to address.

“There is no question that workers are safer today because of the Biden-Harris Administration,” said BAC Secretary-Treasurer Jeremiah Sullivan. “If President Trump is reelected, we can expect all the gains of the last four years to be rolled back, and protections gutted possibly even further than his first term. The transition plan published by key members of his advisory team, Project 2025, would make workplace protections negotiable, so workers can be put in a position that their workplace is no longer meeting basic federal safety standards.”

“BAC’s goal will always be that every member goes home in the same condition that they came to work in, every day,” Sullivan continued. “When it comes to workplace safety, it’s clear which candidate for President shares our goal.”

References: BlueGreen Alliance, AFL-CIO, OSHA