The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- California
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Labor Code sections 6400-6407 and 8 C.C.R. section 3203 ('Existing regulations require employers to implement effective measures to protect employees from worksite hazards'); the State Public Health Officer orders ('the latest public health orders')
- Issued
- 2020-07-16 July 16, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-07-16 (statement of standing duties) (read as 2020-07-16)
- End
- standing (statement of duties that continued in force) (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Standing since July 16, 2020 (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Quarters
- 2020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Face-covering requirementWorkplace rulesStanding duty
- Addressees
- employers (all employers in California; businesses that interact with the public)
- Character
- agency position statement
- Collection
- Standing duties: California DUT-CA
Operative words
Existing regulations require employers to implement effective measures to protect employees from worksite hazards, including recognized health hazards such as COVID-19. Employers must take steps to: Modify work or the worksite to allow people to be at least six feet apart... Employers in businesses that interact with the public must follow the latest public health orders
Penalty
Cal/OSHA citations and civil penalties (Labor Code sections 6427-6429) and misdemeanor liability (section 6423) for violation of the underlying regulations (DUT-CA-010).
What it required
Stated, as the enforcing agency's own reading of the Labor Code and Title 8 duties, that distancing modifications, disinfection, face coverings, symptom screening and exclusion of ill workers were what 'existing regulations require' of every employer, and that employers interacting with the public 'must follow the latest public health orders', including the July 13, 2020 statewide indoor-closure order (CA-010). Character as recorded: agency_position_statement (news release; 'urges').
Retrieval noteRendered from the Wayback Machine's capture of Aug. 7, 2020 of the agency's own release page (the live page remains on dir.ca.gov). The release attributes to Cal/OSHA Chief Doug Parker: 'Protecting employees from workplace hazards is not only required by law, it is also the right thing to do'. Cal/OSHA's 'Interim General Guidelines on Protecting Workers from COVID-19' (May 14, 2020; dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/General-Industry.html) could not be rendered from its archived page and is described by category only; the release is the agency's contemporaneous statement of the same duties.