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With shelter-in-place orders starting to take effect, a lot of people have been spending time and money trying to stock up on supplies. With so many stores running out of items, people are turning to online ordering, especially from Amazon.com.

To meet this increase in demand, Amazon announced that it is hiring 100,000 new employees, as well as boosting pay for existing workers. But many current Amazon employees dont feel safe concerning the coronavirus and their current working conditions.

For example, workers report not having enough hand sanitizer, face masks and disinfecting wipes available. There are also complaints about being forced into close quarters during staff meetings. The complaints bring up the interesting question of what an employer should do to keep its workers safe from a coronavirus infection or to reduce its spread.

Federal Law Requirements

The primary law that governs workplace safety for most workers is the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act). One of the OSH Acts most significant provisions is Section 5(a)(1), also known as the General Duties Clause. It requires that employers:

[S]hall 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

This law is very simple and straightforward, until you try to figure out what it requires in practice.

Normally, there are regulations promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to help employers figure out what theyre legally required to do. Unfortunately, as I previously discussed in an earlier article, no such regulation exists for dealing with airborne infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Earlier this month, OSHA released some guidelines about what employers can do to keep employees safe from the coronavirus. They do not create new legal requirements for employers, but they do provide a little bit of clarity as to what employees can expect.

OSHA Guidelines Concerning the Coronavirus

Much of OSHAs guidance reflects common sense, what public health officials are already saying and what we all learned in school when we were younger.

For example, it suggests that employers promote good hygiene habits, like hand washing and covering ones mouth during a cough. However, the guidance did go over two topics that may help shed light on what employees can expect from their employers with respect to coronavirus safety. Hint: for most employees, not much.

First, it discussed the implementation of four types of workplace controls:

Engineering controls refer to mechanical methods of separating an employee from a workplace danger. Examples would be installing a better air filtration system or physical barriers like sneeze guards.

Administrative controls focus on changing human behavior to reduce exposure to a hazard. Examples include asking sick employees to stay home, making it easier for workers to stay six feet apart from each other and reducing unnecessary travel to locations with coronavirus outbreaks.

Safe work practices (which is technically a type of administrative control), refer to employer practices, policies and procedures, such as making hand sanitizer available to employees and providing disinfecting products so employees can clean their work surfaces.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is an additional level of protection employers can provide employees and refers to things like masks, gloves, hard hats, eye protection and respirators.

Depending on the risk of exposure to the coronavirus, employers may be required to provide PPE to employees. An example might be a nurse working triage in a hospitals emergency room.

The second major topic discussed in OSHAs recently released guidance is the classification of worker risk when it comes to potential exposure to the coronavirus.

The guidance described four levels of risk:

Very high exposure risk would be a situation where an employee comes into contact with known or suspected sources of the coronavirus and has a high risk of exposure to the virus. This would include a health care professional who not only has to treat a patient who might have the coronavirus, but needs to induce them to cough.

High risk exposure risk refers to a situation where an employee may come into contact with someone carrying the coronavirus, but the infected person is not as likely to spread it to the employee. An example might be a doctor entering the room of a coronavirus patient.

Medium exposure risk deals with employees who could come into close contact with someone who might be infected with the coronavirus. The typical teacher or retail worker would likely fall into this category.

Lower exposure risk applies to workers who arent required to be in contact with those who might have the coronavirus or arent frequently in close contact with members of the general public.

Most workers will fall into the lower or medium exposure risk categories. According to the OSHA guidance, for lower-risk employees, the employer doesnt have to do much more than what it was doing before the coronavirus outbreak, and providing PPE isnt required.

For employees that fall under medium exposure risk, employers should install basic engineering controls, such as sneeze guards, consider offering face masks to sick employees who are in the process of leaving the work premises, limit worksite access to the public, reducing travel and thinking about ways to minimize face-to-face contact among employees. In some situations, providing basic PPE (like goggles, a face mask, goggles or a gown) to certain employees may be necessary.

For most employers, the OSH Act wont impose many more additional requirements because of the coronavirus pandemic. Looking at the complaints from some of the Amazon workers, its possible that Amazon is in compliance with the OSH Act.

If an employee believes they are being placed in danger at work in violation of the OSH Act, they can file a complaint with OSHA. If such a complaint is filed, the employee will enjoy protection from retaliation under Section 11(c) of the OSH Act.

Government Action

With most employers legally required to do fairly little for employees to protect them from the coronavirus, there has been some government action to help employees.

For example, President Trump just signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which will provide paid sick leave to some employees to deal with the coronavirus and related reasons. Its far from perfect, and the final version is a slightly watered-down version of what the House of Representatives originally passed. But it makes it financially easier for some workers to stay home from work to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

At the state level, at least 12 states and Washington, D.C. already require employers to provide paid sick leave to employees. And at least one state may go a bit further.

The Minnesota Legislature has pending legislation that would require employers to allow qualified employees to work from home if they are under isolation or quarantine, as long as it is reasonable to do so and wont impose an undue hardship on the employer.

The Bottom Line

Under the current regulatory framework, many employers arent legally required to do that much to keep their employees safe from a coronavirus infection.

There is pending or newly enacted legislation at the state and federal level, but they still wont make it easy for employees to be as safe as possible, whether it be at work or by staying home.

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What Duties Do Employers Have To Protect Employees From The Coronavirus? - Forbes