In response to Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard’s questions asked in today’s Labor Subcommittee Appropriations Hearing, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) confirmed that the U.S. Department of Labor would meet its November deadline for issuing a final rule requiring employers to pay for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for workers. Shown testifying, OSHA Assistant Secretary Edwin Foulke, Jr. said: “My goal is to have it done by November and, unless we have some type of unforeseen hazard or something occurs that would really stop us, I don’t see any problem in reaching that goal.”

Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, who chaired today’s hearing, made her points to the Assistant Secretary by saying: “I ask these questions because I am frustrated that it apparently took a lawsuit and a bill introduced in Congress to finally convince the Department to release the final ruling on Employer Payment for Personal Protective Equipment. As you know, the intent of the original proposed rule from 1999 was to set in stone the practice of ensuring that workers’ personal protective equipment such as respirators, chemical resistant clothing, metal mesh gloves, lifelines and lanyards, safety glasses, and face shields, would be paid for by their employers. According to OSHA’s own estimates, the rule would prevent seven deaths and 47,000 injuries each year. OSHA and the Department have stalled on this ruling for eight years. You have now set a release date of November of this year. And, while I’m pleased to finally see the Department set a hard deadline, I want your assurance that the ruling will be released on time, and that the ruling will make a strong commitment to protecting workers from harm.”

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced it will issue the final ruling that has been languishing for eight years in response to a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. In addition to the lawsuit, Congresswoman Roybal-Allard (CA-34) and Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (CA-7) introduced a bill (H.R. 1327) earlier this month to force the Department of Labor to issue the final ruling.
 

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