Unionized workers want Connecticut to enforce a policy to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in the workplace before the state reopens.
Richard Trumka, national president of the AFL-CIO, says the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, known as OSHA, should enforce workplace standards needed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
But the agency has failed to do that under the Trump administration.
Trumka says that’s why Connecticut and other states should ensure that OSHA safety standards are maintained before reopening the state.
“That plan would require every employer, one to have a plan to protect people from contagious diseases. Two, to educate their employees regardless of the language that they speak. And three, to have proper protective equipment in place.”
Trumka says it was only last week that OSHA agreed to send inspectors to nursing homes and other health care facilities. But cutbacks in funding mean the agency only has enough inspectors to do an inspection of a facility once every 165 years.
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