Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune via AP
Nurses and supporters march from United Hospital to the State Capitol for a rally, May 20, 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created over 50 years ago to ensure safe workplaces for American workers. But American workers continue to get injured, sick, and killed in the workplace: sweltering under record-breaking heat, crushed in trenches, falling off of buildings, ground up in machinery, assaulted by patients, and sickened by chemicals.
The OSHA law permits states to have their own OSHA programs covering all workers. These programs must be “at least as effective” as federal OSHA, but they can also be more effective than the federal program.
So it’s a breath of fresh air that some of the 21 full OSHA state programs are seeking to break out of the straitjackets imposed by paltry budgets, aging laws, and unrelenting political and legal assaults, by implementing innovative policies to protect workers.
Much of the positive attention related to state OSHA plans goes to California’s OSHA program. Cal/OSHA has issued standards to protect workers from heat, ergonomic hazards, and workplace violence—standards that federal OSHA still hasn’t adopted.
But also making important strides while gathering less attention is the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MNOSHA) under the leadership of Gov.—and now vice-presidential candidate—Tim Walz.
Walz’s worker protection initiatives contrast sharply with those of Project 2025, the playbook for a future Trump administration.
Walz and the Minnesota state legislature have an outstanding labor record in general, instituting paid family and medical leave, banning noncompete clauses, prohibiting anti-union “captive audience” meetings, and creating a statewide council to improve conditions for nursing home workers.
Minnesota under Gov. Walz also runs one of the most effective OSHA state plan programs. And they’re saving lives. The state ranks fifth-lowest in the rate of workplace fatalities, significantly lower than the federal workplace fatality rate.
In 2023, with a narrow Democratic majority and working closely with the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state legislature passed several innovative laws that greatly strengthen the safety and health protections provided to Minnesota workers employed in high-hazard jobs. These include:
Protecting Workers from Ergonomic Hazards: About 30 percent of all serious injuries reported by employers to the Bureau of Labor Statistics are musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). These are injuries to the back, wrist, neck, or arm caused by exposure to lifting, twisting, repetitive motions, and other ergonomic hazards.
In 2000, federal OSHA issued an ergonomics standard requiring employers to evaluate and reduce these hazards. In the face of overwhelming corporate opposition, the Republican Congress and President George W. Bush overturned these safeguards the following year. This repeal has made it very difficult for federal OSHA to protect workers exposed to these hazards.
But with little fanfare, the Minnesota legislature has picked up the ergonomics issue and enacted a statute that requires larger businesses in meatpacking and warehouse and distribution, and all employers in health care (three industries where workers commonly develop MSDs from ergonomic hazards) to develop and implement plans to minimize the risk of developing or aggravating musculoskeletal disorders.
Each covered employer must now have an ergonomics program that includes a risk assessment, employee training, early-reporting procedures, a process for employees to propose solutions, procedures to ensure any plant modifications or major construction projects will address ergonomic risks, and program evaluation. The employer must also track injuries and illnesses to determine the effectiveness of their program.
In order to help employers ensure the safety of their workers, Walz insisted that the legislature include a $2 million fund to support businesses for projects designed to reduce ergonomic injuries.
Amazon and Warehouses: Across the country, increased attention has been focused on the back pain and other MSDs suffered by workers at Amazon and other warehouse and distribution centers, especially related to perceived speedup and onerous work quotas.
To address the elevated injury rates in some warehouse distribution centers, Gov. Walz and the Minnesota legislature enacted legislation that requires large warehouse distribution centers to establish safety committees that meet monthly to consider how to reduce injuries; they may meet less frequently if they are able to push their incidence rate low enough for two consecutive years.
In addition, the law requires Amazon and other large distribution firms to disclose to their employees the quotas or programs that the employer uses to monitor work speed.
Upon request from employees, a firm must provide the data it has collected on the individual worker’s speed, and also ensure that the speed and production requirements do not prevent compliance with meal, rest, or prayer periods. In addition, the law protects workers from retaliation if they request the speed data on their own performance or if they fail to meet a quota that interferes with meal or rest or prayer periods.
MNOSHA has already begun enforcing this new law. Earlier this year, the agency issued a citation against an Amazon fulfillment canter in Shakopee. MNOSHA found that “Amazon did not protect employees from ergonomic hazards while selecting, sorting, packaging and shipping products in the outbound process,” and that Amazon expected workers to meet a speed quota but had not provided them with a written copy of the quota requirements. (Amazon has contested the citations.)
Funding: The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires federal OSHA to fund up to 50 percent of what a state plan needs to run an effective program. But states can also choose to provide additional funding—to “overmatch” OSHA’s contribution. Minnesota overmatches a significant amount, and in addition to funding for employer ergonomic projects, Walz added more than $1 million to MNOSHA’s annual budget.
Publicizing Inspection Results: Press releases that report the results of OSHA inspections that identified significant hazards and resulted in fines are an important tool to convince other employers to abate hazards before workers are hurt. During the Obama administration, federal OSHA increased issuance of press releases to remind non-inspected employers that they need to eliminate hazards and avoid citations, before OSHA inspects their establishment. The program was successful: One study estimated that each OSHA press release achieved as much compliance as 200 inspections.
Until 2023, MNOSHA was prohibited from disclosing the results of a state inspection until the contested case was closed, which is always months and often years after the initial inspection. But thanks to legislation passed by the Minnesota legislature and signed by Walz, MNOSHA can now issue press releases 20 days after an employer receives notice.
OSHA Penalties: The size of the fines leveled by OSHA has always been very modest, with little or no deterrent effects. In 2015, Congress raised OSHA’s maximum penalty for a serious violation and directed the agency going forward to adjust penalties annually for inflation. OSHA’s current maximum penalty for a serious violation is $16,131, although in most instances the actual penalties for serious violations are lower, since by law OSHA reduces the size of the fine for small businesses, a good safety record, or evidence that the employer was acting in good faith.
Several state plans have refused to adopt the higher penalties or were dependent on an uncooperative state legislature to authorize increases. For several years, Republican legislators in Minnesota blocked any increase, but Gov. Walz overcame this opposition and pushed through legislation increasing state OSHA penalties to federal levels.
Joint Labor-Management Safety Committees: Every public or private employer of more than 25 employees is required to establish and administer a joint labor-management safety committee, as are smaller employers in high-hazard industries. The committees must hold regularly scheduled meetings and employee members must be selected by the employees. The legislature recently updated an earlier law to ensure that high-hazard employers are covered by the requirement.
Refinery Safety: In a move to increase both worker safety and the safety of residents who live near petroleum refineries, Walz signed refinery safety legislation, requiring better safety training for refinery workers.
COVID-19: At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, before the availability of the vaccine, SARS-CoV-2 raced through workplaces in essential industries like meatpacking, sickening and killing many workers. Under the Trump administration, federal OSHA’s efforts to protect American workers were weak and ineffective: Inspection numbers dropped precipitously, and the small handful of citations issued carried ridiculously small penalties despite massive work-related COVID outbreaks.
Minnesota, under Walz, went the other way. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic—from March 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021—MNOSHA responded to a large increase in complaints and inquiries by conducting over 1,500 inspections, of which 217 were COVID-19-related. The agency issued 2,200 citations (173 citations issued on inspections with a COVID-19 component). MNOSHA’s Discrimination Team fielded 547 complaints, 20 percent of which were related to COVID.
Walz’s worker protection initiatives contrast sharply with those of Project 2025, the playbook for a future Trump administration (although it has been disavowed by the former president). Project 2025 calls for OSHA to stop issuing penalties for small-business first-time violators, essentially telling employers they don’t need to eliminate hazards that injure workers until after their first OSHA inspection—or until after a worker is injured or killed.
As the term of the most labor-friendly administration in American history draws to a close, American workers need continued pro-worker leadership from the top. Vice President Harris promises to continue the Biden labor legacy. Gov. Walz’s success in strengthening Minnesota’s OSHA program demonstrates that he, too, shares this commitment.
