January, 05 2022, 08:31am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Media Outreach Department
Phone:Â 202-637-5018
AFL-CIO and Nation's Major Nursing Unions Urge Federal Court to Order the Department of Labor to Issue a Permanent OSHA Standard to Protect Health Care Workers Against COVID-19
National leading labor organizations and unions representing the country's nurses and health care workers today petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a permanent standard that requires employers to protect health care workers against C
WASHINGTON
National leading labor organizations and unions representing the country's nurses and health care workers today petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a permanent standard that requires employers to protect health care workers against Covid-19. The petitioners include National Nurses United (NNU); AFL-CIO; American Federation of Teachers (AFT); American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); as well as some of the nation's other major nursing unions, including the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) and Pennsylvania Association of Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP).
The unions took this legal action after the Department of Labor failed to make permanent the emergency temporary standard (ETS) on Covid-19 that took effect on June 21, 2021. Without the protections of a permanent standard, the health and well-being of nurses, other health care workers, patients, and the general public is in grave danger.
The unions petitioned the court to issue a writ of mandamus ordering OSHA to issue a permanent standard for health care occupational exposure to Covid-19 "aimed at protecting the life and health of millions of nurses and other frontline health care workers throughout the United States in grave danger from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic," and retain and enforce the June 21 emergency temporary standard until it is properly superseded by the permanent standard.
The failure to retain the existing ETS and to adopt a permanent rule protecting health care workers violates the unambiguous command of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. According to the petition, "when OSHA determines an emergency situation exists (as it did here) and issues an emergency standard, that emergency standard must stay in effect until a final rule is issued, which must be done within six months of publication of the emergency standard."
Nurses note that the grave danger that led to issuance of the emergency temporary standard not only remains, but has dramatically increased with the Omicron variant and current surge in infections and hospitalizations. On Dec. 28, just one day after OSHA announced its plans to rescind the ETS, the seven-day average for new Covid-19 cases broke all previous records when it reached 267,000 cases.
When OSHA issued the ETS in June, the agency noted that as of May 24, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported 491,816 health care workers had contracted Covid-19 and 1,611 had died from it. By Dec. 30, 2021, the CDC reported that those numbers had almost doubled: 803,454 health care workers had contracted Covid-19 and 3,063 had died from the disease.
In light of this stark reality, OSHA's refusal to issue a national, permanent, enforceable standard requiring employers to protect workers in health care settings is an extremely dangerous breach of its duties. The nation's nurses remember well how, before the June 2021 OSHA standard, health care employers frequently denied their employees protections and policies such as personal protective equipment, testing, isolation, and more.
"OSHA is charged with ensuring that employers create and maintain safe workplaces, and this delay in issuing a permanent standard puts the lives of nurses and other health care workers, patients, and our communities, in jeopardy. We have seen far too many of our fellow nurses die during this pandemic. As of today, we have recorded the deaths of 476 nurse deaths from Covid. Going to work should not mean putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in danger. It is time for OSHA to issue a permanent standard and protect nurses and health care workers who are on the front lines working to save the lives of others." -- Bonnie Castillo, RN, National Nurses United executive director
"We are still in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and health care workers are facing dangerous exposures to Covid-19 and need the strongest possible protections in their workplaces. We must treat the surge in new cases as the crisis that it is. That means retaining and enforcing the emergency standards originally set by OSHA. Covid-19 hospitalizations have increased nearly sixfold in the last six months. In the face of the Omicron variant, it is not the time to roll back protections, but to fully enforce and make them permanent. We have no choice but to turn to the courts to ensure that our health care workers are protected as they provide such critical care throughout this pandemic." -- Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO president
"Nurses and health care workers are the heroes who got us through the worst of the pandemic -- but we're not through with Covid-19 yet. Just this week, the U.S. hit a record single-day number of Covid-19 cases: over 1 million. Now is not the time for OSHA to remove the lifesaving protections that have allowed those in our health care settings to do their essential work safely and effectively. To save lives and protect our frontline heroes, OSHA must not rescind the emergency temporary standard and instead promulgate a permanent health care standard to protect the lives and health of millions of nurses and other health care workers in grave danger from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic." -- Lee Saunders, AFSCME president
"Health care workers have been on the front lines of our battle against Covid during the entirety of this pandemic. They have cared for the sick, over and over again, and many have suffered debilitating illness, or death. In the last few weeks, as a result of Omicron, many have gotten sick again. They are exhausted. They protect us and it's OSHA's job to protect them. So you can imagine our surprise and shock, that as a new variant of Covid was surging in the United States, OSHA announced that it would withdraw its standard that required hospital employers to provide layers of mitigations to keep their workers safe. Frontline health care professionals need this emergency protection to continue to ensure they have PPE, time off when necessary, and other workplace standards that ensure they can safely care for their patients, themselves, and their families. Letting the standard expire puts our beleaguered medical professionals at risk at the worst time. Now is not the time to abandon our frontline caregivers. OSHA and employers must be held accountable to make places where the sick are cared for as safe as possible for the people who work there. And when workers are safe, patients are safe." -- Randi Weingarten, AFT president
"The executive branch directed OSHA to issue an airborne infectious disease standard to protect workers during a pandemic that has overwhelmed the nation. With infections and hospitalizations on the rise, frontline hospital nurses and health care workers desperately need enforceable standards for personal protective equipment, exposure notification, ventilation systems, and other lifesaving measures. In failing to follow their own mandate to create a permanent standard, OSHA has put nurses, health care workers, and the public's health at risk of even greater harm. The Department of Labor has left nurses and their patients in serious jeopardy." -- Pat Kane, RN, NYSNA executive director.
"For the past two years, frontline health care workers have willingly sacrificed their own physical and mental health to protect the American public. This decision to pull the rug out from underneath the nation's health care workers on the front lines of the fight against Covid-19 is indefensible and will certainly lead to more unnecessary infections, illnesses, and deaths. We implore our government to stand up to the hospital association lobby and implement the rules and regulations needed to keep our frontline health care workers safe as they continue to care for the public and battle this raging disease." -- Maureen May, RN, PASNAP president
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) works tirelessly to improve the lives of working people. We are the democratic, voluntary federation of 56 national and international labor unions that represent 12.5 million working men and women.
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
(240) 235-2000LATEST NEWS
Privacy Defenders Decry 'Spy Draft' in Section 702 Renewal Advanced by Senate
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," explained one critic.
Apr 18, 2024
Civil liberties defenders on Thursday decried the U.S. Senate's advancement of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which critics say lawmakers are trying to ram through without protection against warrantless surveillance and with a provision that would effectively make every American a spy whether they like it or not.
Senators voted 67-32 in favor of a cloture motion to begin voting on RISAA, a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires on Friday. FISA—a highly controversial law that has been abused hundreds of thousands of times—allows warrantless surveillance of non-U.S. citizens but also often sweeps up Americans' communication data in the process.
In a 273-147 vote last week, House lawmakers passed RISAA, including an amendment critics say dramatically expands the government's unchecked surveillance authority by compelling a wide range of individuals and organizations—including businesses and the media—to cooperate in government spying operations.
This so-called "Make Everyone a Spy" clause would allow the attorney general or director of national intelligence to force electronic communication service providers to "immediately provide... all information, facilities, or assistance" the government deems necessary.
"This bill would basically allow the government to institute a spy draft," Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned Thursday. "It will lead to significant distrust between journalists and sources, not to mention everyone else."
"It's not about who RISAA allows the government to spy on, it's about who RISAA allows the government to force to spy," he added. "Regardless of whether the end target of the surveillance is a foreigner, it's indisputable that the people the government can enlist to conduct the surveillance are Americans. And what's more, these civilians ordered to spy would be gagged and sworn to secrecy under the law."
In addition to the "Make Everyone a Spy" provision, civil libertarians have sounded the alarm over the House lawmakers' rejection of an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the legislation.
Critics accuse Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and colleagues including Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) of trying to rush a vote on RISAA while disingenuously claiming Section 702's powers will expire with the law on Friday. That's a misleading claim, as a national security court earlier this month approved the government's request to continue a disputed surveillance program even if Section 702 lapses.
"There is simply no defense of Majority Leader Schumer and Sen. Warner's duplicity," Sean Vitka, policy director at the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress, said in a statement. "House Intelligence Committee leaders poisoned this bill with one of the most repugnant surveillance expansions in history, and apparently the administration was too busy attacking commonsense privacy protections to notice. They know it, we know it, and now the American people know it."
"There can be no mistake: Sens. Schumer and Warner just helped hand the next president an unspeakably dangerous weapon that will be used against their own constituents," Vitka added. "And there is only one vote left to stop it."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—who
said earlier this week that the bill would dragoon the American people into becoming "an agent for Big Brother"—on Thursday argued that "this issue demands a debate about meaningful reforms, not a rushed vote to rubber-stamp more warrantless government surveillance powers."
In an attempt to tackle the warrantless surveillance issue, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Thursday proposed a RISAA amendment that would require the government to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before accessing Americans' private communications.
However, the amendment contains exceptions to the warrant requirement in the event of unspecified emergencies and cyberattacks.
"If the government wants to spy on the private communications of Americans, they should be required to get approval from a judge—just as our Founders intended," Durbin said in a statement. "Congress has a responsibility to the American people to get this right."
The Biden administration and U.S. intelligence agencies vehemently oppose the Durbin-Cramer amendment. The White House called the measure "a reckless policy choice contrary to the key lessons of 9/11 and not grounded in any constitutional requirement or statute."
"The amendment outright bars the government from gaining access to lawfully collected information using terms associated with U.S. persons," the administration added. "Exceptions to that prohibition are narrow and unworkable. They are insufficient to protect our national security."
On Wednesday, the House also passed the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which would prohibit the government from buying Americans' information from data brokers if it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain the data, which includes location and internet records. The Senate will now take up FANFSA.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The Opposite of Leadership': US Vetoes Palestine's UN Membership
Palestine's permanent observer at the United Nations said the resolution's failure "will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination."
Apr 18, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday used the country's veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block Palestine's bid to become a full member of the U.N.
While 12 nations voted in favor of Palestinian membership and two abstained, the United States is one of five countries—along with China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—who have veto authority at the Security Council.
Since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has said is a "plausibly" genocidal assault of the Gaza Strip in response to a Hamas-led October attack, the Biden administration has blocked three cease-fire resolutions at the Security Council. Under mounting global pressure, the U.S. finally abstained last month, allowing a cease-fire measure to pass.
In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, the Biden administration was pressuring other countries to oppose the Palestinian Authority's renewed membership effort so it could possibly avoid a veto, according to leaked cables obtained by The Intercept.
"Take a moment to ponder how isolated Biden has made the U.S.," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, after the veto. "Biden lobbied Japan, South Korea, and Ecuador HARD to oppose the Palestine resolution so that the U.S. wouldn't have to veto. They refused. So Biden cast his fourth veto in seven months (!!) This is the opposite of leadership."
In addition to the nations Parsi highlighted, Algeria, China, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, Russia, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia voted for giving Palestine full U.N. membership while Switzerland and the United Kingdom abstained.
After the vote, U.N. Newsreported on remarks from Riyad Mansour, a U.N. permanent observer for the state of Palestine:
"We came to the Security Council today as an important historic moment, regionally and internationally, so that we could salvage what can be saved. We place you before a historic responsibility to establish the foundations of a just and comprehensive peace in our region."
Council members were given the opportunity "to revive the hope that has been lost among our people" and to translate their commitment towards a two-state solution into firm action "that cannot be maneuvered or retracted," and the majority of council members "have risen to the level of this historic moment, and they have stood on the side of justice and freedom and hope, in line with the ethical and humanitarian and legal principles that must govern our world and in line with simple logic."
"The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination," Mansour added. "We will not stop in our effort. The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near, and we are the faithful."
Parsi said that "a Western-friendly senior Global South diplomat" told him of Biden's veto: "Whatever agonizing claim the U.S. had to lead a self-appointed free world has died a very loud public death on the Security Council horseshoe tonight. YOU CAN'T LEAD IF YOU CAN'T LISTEN."
Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection in November, has faced fierce criticism in the United States and around the world for U.S. complicity in Israel's war on Gaza—which Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, has controlled for nearly two decades. In under seven months, Israeli forces have killed 33,970 Palestinians, injured another 76,770, displaced most of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million population, devastated civilian infrastructure, and severely limited the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Israel—which already got $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid before October 7—continues to receive weapons support from the Biden administration, even as a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats in Congress, argues that the arms transfers violate U.S. and international law.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Shameful': Columbia Greenlights Police Crackdown on Anti-War Encampment
Even after dozens of students were arrested, hundreds "rushed to take the place of their classmates" and continued the protest.
Apr 18, 2024
The arrests of dozens of Columbia University and Barnard College students on Thursday "galvanized" other supporters of Palestinian rights on the campuses, as hundreds of students occupied the school's western lawn after New York City police filled at least two buses with protesters who had been detained for setting up an encampment.
"Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest," chanted hundreds of students as they marched around the area where organizers had set up a tent encampment early Wednesday morning.
Columbia President Minouche Shafik informed the campus community on Thursday that she had authorized the police to clear the encampment.
As it has been in the past, the school has become a center of anti-war protests—and crackdowns by school officials and the police—since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in October.
Pro-Palestinian students and alumni have demanded that Columbia divest from companies that profit from Israel's apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and cancel its dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.
In response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Columbia in November suspended the campus chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine—an action that pushed the New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal to file a lawsuit on behalf of the students last month.
On Thursday, police and Columbia employees took down about 50 tents that had been up for more than a day and disposed of them in trash cans and alleyways—but The New York Times reported later that "demonstrators repitched a couple of tents, and ... recovered the main signage from the encampment as well," while hundreds of students were "still gathered and chanting on the south side of the grass."
The arrests came a day after Shafik testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on campus.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose daughter, Isra Hirsi, was among the Barnard students who were suspended on Thursday for participating in the encampment protest, questioned Shafik about whether antisemitic protests have actually taken place at Columbia, prompting the president to say there have not.
"There has been a rise in targeting and harassment against anti-war protesters, because it's been pro-war and anti-war protesters is what it seems, like, correct?" asked Omar.
"Correct," replied Shafik.
On Thursday, Omar posted on social media two images of protesters at Columbia: one from the encampment this week, and one from 1968, when students protested the U.S. war in Vietnam.
New York City Council member Tiffany Cabán was among those who condemned the university's crackdown on the protests on Thursday.
"Suspending and arresting Columbia/Barnard student activists and disbanding student organizations—including Jewish students and organizations—doesn't combat antisemitism or increase safety," said Cabán. "All it does is punish and intimidate those who believe in human rights for Palestinians. Shameful."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular