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OSHA Denies AFSCME's Call to Protect Workers from Pandemic Influenza

AFTER 14 MONTHS, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration finally acted on Feb. 26, 2007, denying AFSCME’s petition for an Emergency Temporary Standard for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness. In December 2005, AFSCME — joined by the AFL-CIO and four other unions — called on OSHA to require employers to implement influenza preparedness measures to protect nurses and other health care workers, emergency responders and other essential personnel. AFSCME asked OSHA for regulations because relying on voluntary actions has not worked, leaving potentially millions of frontline workers, who would be called upon in the event of an outbreak, at serious risk.

This nation remains dangerously unprepared for an outbreak of a new strain of flu that has the potential to kill millions of people in this country and the rest of the world. The White House’s National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, and guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as OSHA, are inadequate to protect workers. As a result, AFSCME petitioned OSHA for a standard that would require employers to develop exposure control plans before there is an outbreak — to use isolation rooms, and to provide training and effective respiratory protection, and other measures to protect workers. In addition to an emergency standard for pandemic influenza preparedness, AFSCME also urged OSHA to begin rulemaking for a permanent standard to prevent occupational exposure to communicable and infectious diseases.

In rejecting the petition, OSHA explained that an emergency standard is not warranted because there currently is no pandemic influenza outbreak. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita showed the country and the world all too vividly what happens when adequate planning and preparedness measures are not in place in advance of a large-scale emergency. The purpose of an OSHA standard would be to compel action now, before there is a crisis.

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