This GOP proposal 'would make workplaces immeasurably more hazardous for workers, and also for customers. That’s because litigation — or the threat of litigation — is one of the bulwarks of workplace safety enforcement,' writes columnist hiltzikm.
Uber and Lyft are being squeezed by enforcement of California’s gig worker law.
They would have to explain specifically why they believed that none of those persons or places were the cause of their infection. They would have to submit “proof” of the employer’s “particular state of mind.” What requirements would employers have to meet to be immune from a lawsuit or from any enforcement action by a federal, state or local regulator? Not many.They’d have to show that they had been “exploring options” to comply with federal employment law, or had determined that the risk of harm to public health or the health of employees could not be “reduced or eliminated by reasonably modifying policies, practices, or procedures.
In other words, an employer could exempt itself from federal labor law by examining its “options” or deciding that maintaining a safe workplace was just too darned hard to achieve. If a business issued or posted a written policy on limiting transmission of the coronavirus, that would be enough to achieve immunity from lawsuits.
“If a business printed out a [Centers for Disease Control] guideline and called it a policy, voila, they get a presumption they made reasonable effort,” observes Max Kennerly, a Philadelphia plaintiffs’ attorney who examined the GOP measure in detail andBut the measure also says that a lack of a written policy can’t be held against the business in court.The measure incorporates another item on the GOP’s wish list of litigation obstacles: a limitation on damages.
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