AB 1277 - Occupational Safety Reform
Click here for a FACT SHEET with details about AB 1277.
Click here for a copy of the original bill dated February 22, 2013 and click here for the most recent amended bill dated April 18, 2013.
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Your help is needed. Please write to Assembly Member Nancy Skinner, the bill author, in support of AB 1277. Click here for a model letter. Please also share with us a copy of any letter you submit so we can alert you as to what is happening with this legislation. Click here to email your letter or you can fax it to (510) 835-4913.
UPDATE: First Hearing
AB 1277 successfully passed its first hearing before the Assembly Labor & Employment Committee on April 24, 2013. Assembly Member Skinner provided an opening statement. WORKSAFE'S Jora Trang testified for the bill, followed by a testimony from Joan Lichterman on behalf of University Professional & Technical Employees, Communications Workers of America Local 9119, AFL-CIO. Click here to read the Bill Analysis, which lists all of its supporters as well as those who oppose the bill. Having passed this committee, AB 1277 will next be heared by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 8.
NEXT STEPS: Assembly Appropriations committee
AB 1277 is in the Assembly Appropriatioins committee awaiting a second hearing date. It is currently being held under submission.
SUPPORT
- California Conference Board of the Amalgamated Transit Union
- California Conference of Machinists
- California Labor Federation
- California Nurses Association
- California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
- California Teamsters Public Affairs Council
- Centro Legal de La Raza
- Employee Rights Center
- Engineers and Scientists of California
- International Longshore & Warehouse Union – Northern California District Council
- La Raza Centro Legal
- Labor & Employment Committee of the National Lawyers Guild
- Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 21
- Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (SoCalCOSH)
- UNITE HERE!
- United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Western States Council
- Utility Workers Union of America, Local 132
- Worksafe (Sponsor)
PROBLEM
The California Occupational Safety and Health program is designed to protect the working men and women of California. However, current practices and procedures do not assure that workers, their families, and their representatives always have the right and ability to meaningfully participate. To refocus the program on protecting worker health and safety and to assure a fair hearing for all, existing laws need to be clarified to ensure that both the “spirit of the law” and the “letter of the law” are followed.
AB 1277
AB 1277 improves the California Occupational Safety and Health program by doing the following:·
- Assures that family members and legal representatives of a deceased worker may participate as "parties" in proceedings of the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board (OSHAB) and have all appropriate rights in those hearings. Families are currently denied the right to full participation on behalf of a loved one who has been killed in a workplace incident.
- Requires employers to notify employees when they seek a permanent variance from an OSHA standard or order;
- Assures that worker representatives, such as family members; unions; or community, worker or legal organizations, may assist a worker in filing a truly confidential complaint. Organizations or individuals assisting an employee must by existing POLICY divulge the employee’s name to Cal/OSHA when filing a complaint (the name by law must be confidential) in order for the complaint of a serious hazard to be addressed quickly (within 3 days);
- Assures that workers and their representatives are notified when employers seek a permanent variance from an OSHA standard or order;
- Requires OHSAB to apply the regulations issued by the Department of Industrial Relations in the appeal process;
- Clarifies that Cal/OSHA inspectors may cite violations of statute (the California State Labor Code) and laws requiring the posting a workers’ comp poster, not just violations of Cal/OSHA regulations;
- Sets parameters for Cal/OSHA and the OHSAB to reduce, in certain specified cases, the penalty below the current statutory minimum $5,000 per violation fine for failure to timely report a workplace injury, illness, or death AND to impose enhanced penalties in egregious cases;
- Gives family members of deceased workers the right to represent them in proceedings;
- Reduces needless delays and avoiding scheduling conflicts.