COVID-19 and Your Rights Under OSHA

language toggle

COVID-19 and Your Rights Under OSHA

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) covers the vast majority of workers in the United States, but there are notable exceptions and protections can vary from state to state. Find out if your workplace is covered under OSHA protections, the protocols employers must follow to keep you safe at work and what to do if you’re not.

Am I Covered by OSHA?

The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act establishes and protects workers' rights to a safe and healthful workplace. The law is administered by OSHA, which is charged with ensuring employers provide safe working conditions and a workplace free of recognized hazards.

Private sector employees

Federal OSHA covers most workers in the private sector. Some private sector employees, whose working conditions are regulated by other laws, are not covered. For example, the Mine Safety and Health Administration covers miners, the Department of Transportation plays a role in some transportation sectors, and the Environmental Protection Agency only covers pesticide issues for farm-workers but OSHA is responsible for other hazards in agriculture, such as COVID-19. If your employer has no more than 10 employees or you are hired as an independent contractor, you are not covered by OSHA.

Public sector employees

OSHA does not cover employees in the public sector (municipal, county or state government) unless you work in a state or territory that has a “state OSHA plan.” A state OSHA plan is a state government-run program that has been approved by federal OSHA and must be at least as protective as federal OSHA, performs their own enforcement and can develop additional safety and health standards. Twenty-eight states and territories have state OSHA plans.

Federal government employees

If you work for the federal government, you are covered by OSHA. By presidential order, federal agencies must have an effective safety and health program that meets OSHA standards. But federal agencies are not fined for violating health and safety standards. The exception to this is the U.S. Postal Service, which can be subject to inspections, citations and fines by OSHA.

OSHA Coverage by State and Territory
AL, AR, CO, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, KS, LA, MA, MS, MO, MT, NE, NH, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SD, TX, WV, WI	If you work for the private sector, you are covered by federal OSHA. If you work for the state or local government, you are not covered by OSHA. Some 8 million workers fall in this latter category; for years, unions have advocated for expansion of OSHA coverage to all public sector workers.
AK, AZ, CA, HI, IN, IA, KY, MD, MI, MN, NV, NC, NM, OR, PR, SC, TN, UT, VT, VA*, WA, WY	You are covered by your state OSHA. The state agencies cover private sector and state and local government employees.
CT, IL, ME, NJ, NY, VI	If you work for the private sector, you are covered by federal OSHA. If you work for the state or local government, you are covered by your state’s OSHA.

^{*California has an OSHA standard to protect some workers from infectious diseases. The Aerosol Transmissible Diseases standard (CCR, Title 8, Section 5199) applies primarily in health care settings, laboratories and correctional facilities, not across all industries.

**Virginia is the first state in the nation to issue an emergency temporary standard to protect all workers from COVID-19.}

Your Rights Under OSHA

Right to a Safe Workplace

OSHA’s general duty clause states “that employers shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” 29 USC 654 § 5(a)(1)

While your employer has a general duty to keep you safe at work, OSHA has a high bar for issuing citations for violating this duty and it has not been used by federal OSHA for COVID-19 as of July 2020.

Existing OSHA Standards and COVID-19

Right to Demand a Safe Workplace

You have a right to demand a safe work environment without fear of punishment. Under Section 11(c) of the OSH Act, your employer cannot punish you in any way for:

Reporting an injury or illness to your employer.
Complaining to your employer, union, OSHA or other agency, your co-workers, or the media about job safety and health problems.
Filing safety and health grievances.
Participating in safety and health committees.
Participating in OSHA inspections and other OSHA-related activities.

If you feel you have been disciplined, denied a bonus or benefit, transferred, terminated, or discriminated against in any way because of your action on a health and safety issue, you can file a complaint with OSHA within 30 days of your employer’s retaliatory action. If you are in a union, your union representative can help you file the complaint. If OSHA accepts the case, OSHA acts as your attorney and it can take weeks to months for the case to conclude. If your case is won, your employer must reinstate your job with benefits and back wages.

Employers often discriminate against employees who challenge unsafe working conditions but try to claim that the adverse employment action was caused by some other conduct. That is why it is so important to keep copies of any written communications you make to your employer regarding health and safety issues and to keep a diary of your health and safety activities and any incidents of discrimination. This kind of evidence can be very important in proving a discrimination case.

State laws, where they exist, also prohibit discrimination against employees who blow the whistle or report unsafe or illegal acts by an employer. Unfortunately, many of these laws are weak.

Right to Know About Injuries and Illness at Your Workplace

You have the right to know about injuries and illnesses in your workplace. OSHA requires employers with more than 10 employees to keep a record of all work-related injuries and illnesses, including COVID-19. This record is called an OSHA Form 300 Log. Union members or unions can request these from the employer in a single instance or on a regular basis. If requested, your employer must provide you or your union with a copy of the OSHA Form 300 Log by the end of the next business day.

Your employer also must fill out a detailed form about each injury or illness called Form 301. You are entitled to a copy of the Form 301 only for your own injuries and illnesses. Your employer must provide you a copy of the form by the end of the next business day following your request. If your union requests this form, it has the right to receive a copy of the form with all personal information about the employee removed, and the employer has to provide it within seven calendar days after a request.

Your employer is required to post an annual summary of the OSHA 300 Log, called Form 300-A, in the workplace during February, March and April each year.

Right to File an OSHA Complaint and Request an OSHA Inspection at Your Workplace

You can request an OSHA inspector come to your workplace if you believe hazardous conditions or violations of OSHA standards exist. The best way to do this is to consult your union representative (if you have a union) and have the union file an OSHA complaint. If you don't have a union, you or a group of workers can file a complaint with OSHA. Upon request, OSHA will keep your name confidential if you do not want your employer to know you filed the complaint, but sometimes the identity of the worker filing the complaint can be obvious to the employer.

In the OSHA complaint, you should include a detailed list of the hazards you are concerned about and reference anything you’ve documented on them. Talking with your co-workers in advance to document hazards from all shifts, departments and tasks helps to provide a clear picture of the workplace. This will help the inspector know what to look for and will make the inspection more effective.

Frequently, especially recently due to the increase in COVID-19 complaints, when OSHA offices receive telephone calls or written complaints from workers, inspectors make a telephone call or send a letter to the employer rather than conduct an actual inspection. However, if you have filed a formal written complaint and feel that an inspection is necessary, you have the legal right to get an inspection.

Even if workers are sick or injured, filing an OSHA complaint may be a last resort. You may not want to file a complaint if no specific OSHA standards are clearly being violated. OSHA may not be very helpful, and it is unlikely that OSHA will issue a “General Duty Clause” citation for COVID-19. Union members and unions have sometimes had bad experiences when OSHA came to inspect a workplace and found no violation of OSHA rules. Their employer claimed they had received a “clean bill of health” from OSHA even though union members and unions knew that the health or safety of members was still in jeopardy. So it’s important to do preparation work before filing an OSHA complaint.

Can I Assume My Workplace Is Safe from COVID-19 if It Meets OSHA Standards?

While workers have used OSHA protections to drastically improve working conditions throughout the years, “OSHA compliance” alone does not fully guarantee you a safe workplace.

It is important to make sure the employer does more than just obey OSHA standards. Good workplace health and safety programs must go beyond compliance with OSHA standards in order to ensure a safe working environment (just as “good wages” go beyond the “minimums” set by federal “minimum wage” laws). Some OSHA standards are outdated and not as protective as they should be and standards do not exist for other hazards. For example, federal OSHA does not have a standard specifically for COVID-19 or any other airborne infectious disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines also are not enough for an employer to create a safe workplace from COVID-19. CDC guidelines are not enforceable and include many caveats that employers should simply consider doing instead of requiring and enforcing protections.

If you’re a union member, contact your union to learn more about OSHA and good workplace health and safety programs. If there’s not a union where you work, consider contacting a union for information and help with OSHA.

View industry-specific resources and guidance

Can I Refuse Work That Might Put Me in Serious Danger?

OSHA does not sufficiently protect workers for refusing potentially dangerous work. If you are asked to do work that you believe might lead to death or serious injury, you can refuse to do that work, but you are only protected against termination or discipline by the OSH Act if the following conditions are met:

You have a reasonable belief that there is a real, imminent danger of death or serious injury.
Your refusal to work is made in good faith.
You first ask your employer or supervisor to eliminate the danger.
You have no reasonable alternative to refusing to do the work.
The danger is so urgent that you cannot risk waiting for an OSHA inspection.

If all of these conditions are met, and you are punished for refusing to do dangerous work, you can file a complaint with OSHA and you may be protected. The required conditions are difficult to meet and often workers are faced with hard decisions. The best thing to do if faced with a serious safety hazard on the job is to talk with co-workers who have similar concerns so that you can act as a group. When acting together with your co-workers about a workplace concern, you may be protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

The strongest protection against employer retaliation in work refusal situations is to have a union and have strong language in your union contract that gives workers the ability to exercise our rights to refuse hazardous work.

If you think doing a task might mean imminent and serious injury or death, remember, you can get another job, but you cannot get another life.

You have the right to be safe at work.

Your employer may not be doing enough to keep you safe. Learn more about your rights to a safe workplace and how collective action with your co-workers can improve workplace safety and save lives.