The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Texas
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Tex. Labor Code § 411.103
- Issued
- 1995-09-01 Sept. 1, 1995
- Effective
- standing (read as 1995-09-01)
- End
- standing (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Standing since Sept. 1, 1995 (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Workplace rulesStanding duty
- Addressees
- employers (every employer of an 'employee,' defined in § 411.102(2) as an individual who works for an employer for compensation, other than domestic service in a private residence)
- Character
- workplace duty
- Collection
- Standing duties: Texas DUT-TX
Operative words
Each employer shall: (1) provide and maintain... a place of employment that is reasonably safe and healthful for employees; (2) install, maintain, and use... methods of sanitation and hygiene, that are reasonably necessary to protect the life, health, and safety of the employer's employees; and (3) take all other actions reasonably necessary to make the employment and place of employment safe.
Penalty
None stated in the subchapter; § 411.109 provides that this subchapter and Health and Safety Code chs. 341 and 755 'to the extent possible shall all be given effect'; the identical federal duty, 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1) (Ex. DUT-AL-009), carries the civil penalties of 29 U.S.C. § 666 and was enforced through OSHA's COVID-19 National Emphasis Program and response plan (Exs. FED-082 to FED-084); § 411.081 requires every employer to post the division's hotline for 'reports of violations of occupational health or safety law'
What it required
Every Texas employer was under a standing mandatory duty to keep the place of employment 'reasonably safe and healthful,' to use 'methods of sanitation and hygiene' reasonably necessary to protect employees' health, and to 'take all other actions reasonably necessary' to make the workplace safe; the content of that duty during an airborne pandemic was supplied by DSHS's minimum standard health protocols, the CDC guidelines and OSHA's guidance, so that distancing, screening, sanitation, ventilation and exposure controls were the statute's requirement, not the employer's choice.
Retrieval noteThe exhibit is the official chapter page as archived October 18, 2020. Texas has no State OSHA plan for private employers; the Division of Workers' Compensation's occupational safety and health program (Subchapters B, C, E and F of the same chapter) supplies consultation, the hotline and accident-prevention services. The Texas Medical Board's emergency rule making the COVID-19 'Minimum Standards of Safe Practice' a condition of practice (Ex. AGY-ST-HEALTH-BOARDS-046) and the State Board of Dental Examiners' Rule 108.7 (Exs. TX-054, TX-055) are the licensing-board analogues in the library.