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National Construction Practice Safety Alert Discretion in Enforcement When Considering an Employer’s Good Faith Efforts During the COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread business closures, restrictions on travel, limitations on group size, facility visitor prohibitions, stay-at-home or shelter-in-place requirements. These actions have severely limited the availability of employees, consultants or contractors who normally provide required training, auditing, equipment inspections, testing and other essential safety and industrial hygiene services such as: Annual audiograms Annual process safety management requirements (Process Hazard Review PHA) Revalidation, Review of Operating Procedures, Refresher Training) Hazardous Waste …

National Construction Practice Safety Alert Under OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements, COVID-19 is a recordable illness and employers are responsible for recording cases of COVID-19 on the OSHA 300Log of Work Related Injuries and Illnesses. However, in areas where there is ongoing community transmission, employers other than those in the healthcare industry, emergency response organizations and correctional institutions may have difficulty making determinations about whether workers who contracted COVID-19 did so due to exposures at work. In light of these difficulties, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion. Objective Evidence OSHA has suspended injury and fatality reporting requirements related to …

My employee alleges that they contracted the coronavirus while at work. Will this result in a compensable workers’ compensation claim? If the employee is a health care worker or first responder, the answer is likely yes (subject to variations in state law). For other categories of employees, a compensable workers’ compensation claim is possible, but the analysis would be very fact-specific. If there was an exposure to COVID-19 in the work place is the employee likely to establish a compensable workers compensation claim? Each state has different laws around what establishes a work related injury. In most cases …

… and that independence will not be impaired provided CPAs comply with the interpretations of the Nonattest Services subtopic of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. The AICPA also notes that the majority of the certifications and authorizations in the “Representations, Authorizations and Certifications” section of the PPP loan application are management responsibilities. The signature required on page 2 of the application is required to be made by the company applying for the loan or its authorized representative. As such, signing as a client’s authorized representative would impair independence on an attest client because the CPA would be exercising management …