The streamlined regulations were approved Thursday by the Cal/OSHA Standards Board, a seven-member body appointed by the governor to oversee workplace regulations. For the first time in two years, the board met in person at a hybrid meeting, where people who wanted to make public comments could do so in person or via video conference.
On difficult issues, relying on CDPH rules During public comments, Pamela Murcell, president of the California Industrial Hygiene Council, stated that it "is a reasonable approach to keeping up with the rapid pace of developments and changes." Her organization promotes the industrial hygiene profession.
Speaking after the meeting, Ben Ebbink, a partner at management law firm Fisher & Phillips, said the real significance is that the state will continue to have Emergency Temporary Standards for workplaces until the end of the year.
Many businesses were tempted to believe COVID was over after California dropped most masking requirements, the most visible pandemic restriction, he said. The rules remind them that they must continue to take steps to ensure that workplaces are compliant.
And the timing is perfect. "We've gotten more calls about outbreaks in the last two weeks than we have in previous months," Ebbink said. "With the fluctuating nature of this virus, we're back to employers seeing more positive cases and having to remind themselves what to do in an outbreak situation."
According to state data, California is currently averaging about 2,700 new cases per day, or 6.9 per 100,000 people, with a death rate of 20 cases per day.
The following changes have been made to the new standards:
There are no distinctions in how employees who have been vaccinated and those who have not been vaccinated are treated.
Barriers, partitions, and physical separation requirements were eliminated in favor of a focus on improved air supply, ventilation, and air filtration.
Surface cleaning and disinfection requirements were eliminated.
Face covering requirements were relaxed, and unvaccinated workers were not required to wear them. Masks are only required in emergency shelters, cooling/heating centers, health care settings, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and long-term care facilities, according to CDPH guidelines. Face coverings are also no longer required on company-provided transportation.
Using at-home tests is now simpler because employees only need to provide a time-stamped photo of the test results rather than a video.
Employees who test positive now have five days to return to work if they test positive and wear face coverings for another five days.
The most contentious aspect of the new regulations is that they maintain exclusion pay, which continues an employee's salary and benefits if they have to stay home due to a workplace exposure, despite lawmakers having approved supplemental sick leave until September.
According to several employer representatives, the regulation's wording, which states that exposed employees should receive exclusion pay until they test negative, may encourage workers to refuse tests in order to receive more paid time off.
"This incentivizes employees to refuse testing after they've been exposed because they'll get more exclusion pay," said Rob Moutrie, policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce.
"There should be no perverse incentive to refuse testing," Megan Shaked, an attorney for the California Employers COVID-19 Prevention Coalition, a business group, said.
Labor and worker advocates, on the other hand, applauded the continuation of exclusion pay.
"Guaranteed inclusion pay for positive COVID cases is essential for worker safety and health," said AnaStacia Nicol Wright, an attorney at Worksafe, a worker safety advocacy organization. "Exclusion pay will become less of a burden as time passes. As the pandemic fades, there will be fewer cases, and exclusion pay will become less important."
According to Eric Berg, Cal/deputy OSHA's chief of Health, Research, and Standards, other state regulations allow employers to mandate tests for workers as a job requirement, which means workers should not be able to refuse tests.