The announcement is already drawing cheers from the labor-backed National Council on Occupational Safety and Health and its Arizona affiliate, and, predictably, jeers from the right-wing Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee, led by notoriously anti-union Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. She called OSHA’s move “a power grab.”

Taking all of this into consideration it comes as no surprise that Amazon landed a spot on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of the most hazardous employees in the USA courtesy of the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH).

The “COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for employers to take effective measures to reduce risk for workers,” Jessica Martinez, Los Angeles-based co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health wrote in an email. “Every employer has a legal and moral responsibility to provide a safe workplace free from recognized hazards, which certainly includes the hazards of workplace violence.”

In a brief to the court, the AFL-CIO and several unions argued strongly for the OSHA standard and for protecting the health care workers as well. The labor-backed National Council on Occupational Safety and Health had previously blasted the lower court ban on OSHA’s rule. The court majority upheld that ban.

“It’s shameful and outrageous to see anyone put politics ahead of public health,” National COSH co-Executive Director Marcy Goldstein-Gelb said then.

Jessica E. Martinez, co-executive director, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH):

“At a time when the COVID-19 virus is spreading faster than ever, workers will pay the price—with their very lives—for this wrong-headed decision by the Supreme Court. A deeply flawed opinion ignores law and precedent that clearly states OSHA’s authority to protect workers from dangerous conditions. It’s good to know that workers in federally-funded health care facilities will still have protections from COVID-19, but we cannot leave other workers defenseless against a deadly virus. OSHA can and should still require employers to meet their legal and moral obligation to provide a workplace safe from known hazards, which certainly includes infectious diseases like COVID-19.”

Marcy Goldstein-Gelb is co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. She casts doubt on the CDC’s scientific basis for shortened quarantine and isolation times. 

“The decision was based on early findings of Omicron,” Goldstein-Gelb said via email, “and doesn’t take into consideration the fact that many people who become infected don’t know precisely when and where they became infected. It also assumes that people will be wearing masks after that shortened period.”

"Nurses in hospitals in a large swath of states are once again being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients and it is critical that the vital protections instituted last June are not allowed to lapse," "This is essential to protect frontline caregivers and to ensure that our hospitals do not become disease vectors."

Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) said that "OSHA must act swiftly to extend lifesaving protections for health care workers and to create new Covid-19 safety rules for all workers."

Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the worker safety advocacy organization National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, said the fact that workers were debating whether to leave and some based their decisions on whether to risk lost wages means there either wasn’t a preparedness plan or it wasn’t being followed.

In a press release from the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH), the organization said that investigations into both of these tragedies “must include questions about why workers were on the job during extreme weather conditions. "What kind of warning systems were in place? What processes do Amazon and Mayfield have in place for emergency preparedness and response?" asked Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, a co-executive director of COSH."

“Pushing these costs onto workers is wrong-headed and an unprecedented departure from all previous OSHA standards,” said Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which advocates for better working conditions. “Employers, who have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace, have always been required to pay the costs of tests and screening for occupational illnesses and for personal protective equipment; this case should be no different,” she added.

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a leading workplace safety advocacy group, called that decision “wrong-headed,” noting that it represents a break with precedent for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “Employers, who have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace, have always been required to pay the costs of tests and screening for occupational illnesses and for personal protective equipment; this case should be no different,” Jessica E. Martinez, co-executive director of National COSH, said in an emailed statement.