Employers OSHA Modernization Coalition (Update and Next Steps)

June 26, 2025January 6, 2026Theresa Jordan Leave a comment

Last month, the national OSHA Practice at Conn Maciel Carey LLP kicked off a new initiative to work with employers and trade groups to advocate to the new Administration about OSHA standards, interpretations, enforcement policies, and agency procedures that should be evaluated for reform or rescission.

CMC has been organizing the Employers OSHA Modernization Coalition directly in response to various invitations from the second Trump Administration to identify opportunities to “modernize” the regulatory landscape. For example, on April 11, 2025, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting stakeholders’ feedback on federal regulations that are onerous, outdated, or unnecessary. That RFI followed on the heels of other deregulatory steps taken by the White House, including: Continue reading →

A (Brief) Preview of the Future of Workplace Safety & Health: Trump’s Nominee to Lead OSHA Appears Before the Senate HELP Committee

June 9, 2025June 11, 2025Theresa Jordan Leave a comment

By Aaron Gelb, Eric J. Conn, Kate McMahon, and Rachel Conn

On Thursday, June 5, David Keeling, President Trump’s nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of Labor (OSHA), appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (the “HELP Committee”). After starting his career as a package handler, and member of the Teamsters union, at United Parcel Service (UPS) in 1985, held a variety of safety-focused roles, eventually serving as the global head of safety for the package handling giant. After his long and distinguished career in safety at UPS, Keeling served as the Director of Road and Transportation Safety at Amazon from 2021 to 2023, during which time the company was working to resolve OSHA investigations through improved ergonomic safety procedures.

Regular readers of the OSHA Defense Report no doubt recall that during the first Trump Administration (2017-2021), for the first time in OSHA’s history, the agency went four years without a Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary at the helm. The second Trump Administration appears to be taking a very different approach by quickly nominating Keeling and ensuring that he gets his turn before the Senate HELP Committee before the Summer begins, increasing the odds that there will be a Trump-appointed Head of OSHA before the Fall of the first year of President’s Trump second term.

Keeling prefaced his remarks by stating Continue reading →

What Employers Need to Know About the Monkeypox Virus [Webinar Recording]

September 9, 2022July 10, 2025Theresa Jordan Leave a comment

On September 6, 2022, Kara M. Maciel, Eric J. Conn and Ashley D. Mitchell presented a webinar regarding What Employers Need to Know About the Monkeypox Virus.

On July 23rd, the World Health Organization declared Monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. By late July, the U.S. surpassed 10,000 total cases, and the Biden Administration declared it a public health emergency. While the Monkeypox Virus is less transmissible than COVID-19 and rarely fatal in its current form, there are still workplace safety and health considerations employers will have to address.