Ilhan Omar: 'Potential Rollback' Of Child Labor Laws Is 'Very Troubling'

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In a House Education Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) asked the AFL-CIO Safety and Health Director Ms. Rebecca L. Reindel about potential changes in OSHA policies.

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00:00Next, I'll recognize the ranking member for five minutes of questioning.

00:05Ms. Randall, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:10Just this week, OSHA announced a major policy change

00:14related to the monetary penalties for workplace safety violations.

00:20Under current law, what is the maximum penalty OSHA can seek for a serious violation?

00:25Ms. Randall, excuse me, the maximum penalty is $16,000, $550,000, so it's roughly $16,000.

00:36What if a worker is killed?

00:39If a worker is killed, it depends on the type of violation.

00:42It could also be a maximum of $16,000 if it's a serious violation.

00:47And just to be clear, these are only the maximum penalties, right?

00:52Ms. Randall, these are maximum penalties.

00:54They're often much, much lower.

00:57In our annual report, we do look at this.

01:00And for federal OSHA, the average serious penalty that OSHA issues is $4,000

01:05for a serious violation of the OSHA Act.

01:08Now, can you briefly tell us what OSHA announced this week?

01:12What are the consequences of this decision?

01:15And will workers' lives be at risk?

01:16Ms. Randall, OSHA announced on Monday a new policy change related to its penalty structure

01:25and related to reducing penalties for businesses when they are cited by OSHA.

01:32OSHA has always, long-term, has had four categories for good faith, penalty reduction,

01:42a history, lack of a history of violations, penalty reduction, quick-fix penalty reduction,

01:48and size-based penalty reductions.

01:50And what this policy did here was it changed the criteria, and it's letting more employers

01:55into the penalty reduction space, and that includes large employers, not just small businesses.

02:02It also increases the penalty reductions to 70%, so you get fined by OSHA.

02:08So you can have up to a 70% penalty reduction now, or 80% for willful violations.

02:14And if you haven't had an inspection in five years, you actually can have a reduction in penalties.

02:21And what it used to be was that you had to have an inspection in the last five years

02:26without many serious violations in order to achieve that.

02:30Wow.

02:30What message does it send when this administration is willing to make it cheaper to break the law?

02:35Sure.

02:37This new policy just creates incentives for employers to take the low road and to not follow the law.

02:44If you know that, you know, we already know that OSHA doesn't show up to workplaces because of its resources,

02:50that it can't make it to so many workplaces every year.

02:53And further now, we know that if they will show up to, employers can expect, you know,

02:59penalties that are much too low to be a deterrent for violating our nation's safety and health laws.

03:03In May, Secretary Chavez-Rumira told this committee that she would double down in addressing child labor.

03:15And yet her labor department recently sent a draft rule to OMP on child labor, which has not been made public,

03:23that might actually weaken child labor protections.

03:27With child labor violations rising across the country, we need to make our child labor laws stronger, not weaker.

03:32And I hope everyone here can agree with that because potential rollback is very troubling.

03:41Ms. Randall, if this new DOL rule increases hours that children can work or exposes them to more dangerous jobs,

03:52what exactly is the Trump administration doubling down on?

03:55Ms. Randall, if this new DOL rule, are you sure to have a problem?

03:56Ms. Randall, if this new DOL rule is not going to be a problem?

03:57Sure.

03:58Yes, we haven't seen this rule in full yet, but it is by title about hazardous occupations for children to work in.

04:06So we actually have seen these things before in the first Trump administration where they have attempted

04:13to lower the age that children can work in dangerous occupations and having them work at different hours for longer time periods.

04:22And right now, for decades, our nation has prevented children from working in certain

04:31hazardous occupations.

04:32We've had many violations of this over the years, and child labor violations are a very

04:37clear indicator of other health and safety violations that are going on in workplaces.

04:42Thank you, and with that, I'll be back.

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