White Comments on OSHA's New Anti-Retaliation Guidance

Senior Counsel Taylor White was quoted in a Business Insurance article, “Clear as mud: OSHA anti-retaliation guidance worries stakeholders,” about a new memorandum clarifying the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s enforcement stance on the anti-retaliation provisions of its electronic record-keeping rule.

White said the memo’s language seems to signal a shift in the agency’s position that will benefit employers, such as its listing of several permissible instances for drug testing, including drug testing to evaluate the root cause of a workplace incident that harmed or could have harmed employees.

“That was one of the biggest things for employers to figure out how to comply with: How do I do my root cause analysis in this situation without running afoul of the rule?” he said. “What is reasonable possibility that drugs and alcohol were involved? That was a big, big struggle for employers, and this kind of makes that much easier – just drug-test everyone, alcohol-test everyone, not just the person that reported the incident, but everybody who was involved.”