OSHA Asks Congress To Bolster Protections for Whistleblowers Complaining of Workplace Safety Concerns
David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor and head of OSHA, told the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety yesterday about the improvements that OSHA has made in its whistleblower protection program, but stressed that legislation was needed to bolster the general whistleblower protections of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Section 11(c) of the Act).
Michaels asked the Senate to provide OSHA with the authority to order immediate preliminary reinstatement of employees that OSHA finds have suffered illegal termination, modifying the adjudication process to allow for workers to take their disputes to a federal district court if OSHA fails to reach a timely conclusion, extending the statute of limitations for filing complaints from 30 days to 180 days, and lowering the burden of proof to conform to the standard used in more recently enacted whistleblower legislation.
The full written testimony from the Assistant Secretary is available here.
