COVID-19 Update: Custodian Car Rally, Revised Coronavirus Policies

Custodians cruise for change

Hundreds of custodians, along with other members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 105, participated in a car rally in downtown Denver this week to demand better wages, improved health care benefits, and stepped-up safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS Denver-TV reports.

The union custodians are currently negotiating a contract extension. They organized the rally to bring attention to their struggles as essential workers who risk their health to keep communities clean, sanitized, and safe.

SEUI Local 105 represents more than 8,500 workers across Colorado in health care, airports, and property service.

OSHA adopts revised coronavirus requirements in response to reopenings

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has adopted two revised policies for enforcing its coronavirus requirements as economies reopen throughout the country.

First, OSHA is increasing in-person inspections at all types of workplaces. OSHA staff will continue to prioritize COVID-19 inspections and will utilize all enforcement tools as OSHA has historically done.

Second, OSHA is revising its previous enforcement policy for recording cases of coronavirus. Under OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements, coronavirus is a recordable illness and employers are responsible for recording all cases if they are confirmed as a coronavirus illness, are work-related, and  involve one or more of the general recording criteria, such as medical treatment beyond first aid or days away from work.

Employers with 10 or fewer employees and certain employers in low-hazard industries have no recording obligations. They need only report work-related coronavirus illnesses that result in a fatality or an employee’s in-patient hospitalization.