Would injecting employees with thiomersal be an osha violation? The osha limit for occupational mercury exposure is 50 micrograms per cubic meter. Vaccines are way more. Would injecting your employees with thiomersal be an osha violation?
Welcome to LSE. Here are some answers to your question: No! It's not even close, but something like it is. The OSHA standard you cite is for mercury in the air in the workplace. You ask about &quot;injections,&quot; which do not involve mercury in the air, so: this standard does not apply to injections. You ask about &quot;injecting your employees with thiomersal.&quot; With only a few exceptions (for those helping diabetics, etc, and emergencies), all states require that licensed health care professionals administer injections, and then, only under a prescription. (For example, thiomersal is mostly used in vaccines. All states require licensed health professionals to administer vaccines.) So: Unless you are a licensed health professional with a prescription, you cannot inject your employees with thiomersal. However, OSHA has interpreted its rules and regulations to allow employees to require vaccines in some circumstances, such as a pandemic. To the extent these vaccines contain thiomersal, employers can require employees to get injected with thiomersal by a licensed health professional.
I limit my answer to U.S. law. The Right To Quit And Its Impact On Unemployment Benefits First, absent narrow exceptions (e.g. soldiers), any employee can quit at any time, from work with a bad employer. Normally quitting forfeits a right to unemployment insurance payments, but if the employee can convince the unemployment eligibility hearing office that the conditions the employer established were so bad that there was a &quot;constructive discharge&quot; the employee will be treated as having been fired for purposes of unemployment insurance. The employee can't get an advisory opinion on constructive discharge, however. The employee must act first and argue that there was a constructive discharge afterwards at risk of not getting any unemployment benefits if the employee loses. Occupational Safety and Health Laws Second, the employer is obligated to follow workplace safety law. Outside the mining industry (which does not include oil and gas work), workplace safety regulations are primarily promulgated by OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) which is a subdivision of the federal department of Labor. Many states have a parallel state agency. (The mining industry is governed by MHSA a parallel and much more powerful body.) Violating workplace safety rules established by OSHA can result in the employer being fined and being required to correct the situation going forward, although the amounts of the fine even taken together with worker's compensation packages, are often far less than the amount of liability that the employer would have in a third-party negligence lawsuit. The government and not the employee receives the fine paid if one is imposed. Also, OSHA is vastly understaffed and routinely ignores worker complaints out of sheer lack of manpower, since it is responsible for all safety issues for 98%+ of all employees in the entire United States. OSHA has protocols related to requirements for employees working in extreme heat that are discussed here. In particular, OSHA states that: Washington, Minnesota, and California have specific laws governing occupational heat exposure. Federal OSHA has a General Duty Clause (Section 5a of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970) that requires employers to provide a place of employment that is “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees.” The OSHA Technical Manual Chapter on Heat Stress establishes that OSHA uses WBGT to determine if a heat hazard was present. Thus, outside those three states, rather than having detailed requirements in a regulation, OSHA has general suggestions and provides a framework for evaluating heat related safety and occupational illness issues that gets evaluated on a case by case basis if OSHA asserts that an employer has violated these general safety requirements, which will be resolved in a hearing, if necessary, if a citation issued by OSHA on this basis is issued by OSHA and disputed by the employer. Worker's Compensation Third, the employer has liability without regard to fault for all work related injuries, illness and deaths under worker's compensation law. The employer has liability even if the employer didn't violate any OSHA regulations or standards. But, the recovery allowed is much more meager than it would be between strangers suing each other for negligence. It is largely limited to lost wages, medical expenses, and funeral expenses, although if a deceased worker has dependents, their dependent survivors are also entitled to worker's compensation lost income benefits. The existence of worker's compensation coverage, however, bars an employee from bringing a lawsuit other than a worker's compensation claim against the employer, however. Collective Bargaining Rights Of Unionized Workers Fourth, in a unionized workplace, the union could raise a grievance with the employer under the collective bargaining agreement governing the workplace which will universally require the employer to follow safety rules. If there is a dispute, these disputes are typically referred to an arbitrator in union-management arbitration. The arbitrator has considerable freedom to fashion remedies if the arbitrator feels that the safety rules were not followed. Neither side can appeal the arbitrator's ruling. If the employer does not follow an order from an arbitrator, this is converted to a court order at an ordinary court with jurisdiction over the employer and the court will make the arbitrator's order a court order which may be enforced under pain of contempt of court sanctions (including incarceration or punitive fines).
One path would be to get compliance, by demonstrating that it is legally required. The best evidence that he is legally required to wear a mask is this recent mandate from the Department of Public Health. However, I cannot find a corresponding executive order, which may be in a generic form empowering CDPH to issue orders. Any imposition of penalties for violation must be publicly announced and rest on legislative authority. The mandate is not generally enforced, except in a few cases regarding bars and restaurants. There are various persuasive avenues that you could pursue, such as asking CDPH to come talk to him (unlikely, but you could try), complaining to the property owner, appealing to local social media to apply pressure (possibly putting yourself at legal risk for defamation, if you make a false statement). There are two more involved legal actions to contemplate. One is to terminate the lease and move elsewhere. This would likely result in an action to collect the remainder of the rent, but the strategy would be to argue that the manager has interfered with your private enjoyment of the premise. A second, highly improbable, is to sue the manager and get an enforceable court order requiring him to wear a mask. Courts have a prejudice against ordering people to take actions when other options exist (terminating the lease, monetary compensation). It could be an interesting but expensive test case to see if you could get a judge to order the manager to wear a mask. So yes they are obligated to wear masks, but legal enforcement is going to be difficult at best.
Is it legal for a company to offer a different insurance rate based on the spouse's employer's offerings? Given the scenario you describe, your employer is not charging you a different rate if your spouse is eligible for insurance from your spouse's employer. Under the Affordable Care Act, when an employer decides to provide health coverage to their employees there is no requirement to provide insurance to the employee's spouse. Extending coverage to an employee's spouse carries additional cost to the employer. Many employers implement surcharges for those employee's spouses if coverage is otherwise available to the spouse. Essentially, when coverage is available to a spouse through their employer and they choose to be covered by their spouse's employer they are making a choice, one would presume, for better coverage. In this case, the employer is seeking to recover some of their cost for covering someone who would otherwise have coverage. From this article dated January, 2014, you can see that many employers are moving in this direction. That article references an article regarding UPS. UPS is excluding any spouses from coverage if they would otherwise have coverage from elsewhere. You ask what right do they have to this information [that your spouse has coverage available elsewhere]? You are asking your employer to extend health coverage to your spouse, a benefit that your employer apparently provides. Your employer has the right to ask you information regarding that benefit extension you have requested. If you don't have a spouse or you aren't seeking to have your employer increase their benefit cost by extending coverage to your spouse then there is no reason for them to know if your spouse is covered. What other legal means do they have to find out this information? They should only be seeking this information because you've decided to ask them to provide a benefit to your spouse. If you were to lie about this information then they would have the same facilities available for any other fraudulent act to gain a benefit contrary to the employer's policy. Does this constitute illegal discrimination? Based on what? The employer is not required to extend the benefit to your spouse. The employer's policy for extending that benefit is to charge $50 for any spouse who could otherwise be covered by their employer. If you want the benefit then answer the question truthfully and, if your spouse is otherwise eligible for coverage, then pay the $50. If you don't want to answer the question then don't request the benefit. I am aware of similar policies regarding smoking which are similarly controversial. What conclusions can we draw from that precedent? What precedent, that it is legal to charge smokers more for health insurance? The Affordable Care Act allows insurance providers to charge up to 50% higher premiums for smokers. Here's an article from the Society for Human Resource Management: Most employers using a spousal surcharge require an employee who enrolls a spouse in the plan to pay the surcharge unless the employee can verify that the spouse is not eligible to enroll in his or her plan, is eligible but not allowed to participate for a particular reason, or is not employed.
Yes, it can First, your argument is scientifically vacuous - Sodium and Chlorine are highly dangerous substances - Sodium bursts into flame on exposure to air and Chlorine is both toxic and corrosive. Sodium Chloride is table salt - dangerous in its own way but not in the same class. The same is true in reverse of petrol and superphosphate (fertiliser) apart they are relatively benign, together they are a mining explosive. Second, even if your science was valid, it wouldn't matter. If the government wants to ban substance A and not substance B they have the legal power to do so.
How should I proceed? I am asking law friends to recommend some employment lawyers, but other than this, can I do anything else? You definitely don't need an employment lawyer for this. From a legal standpoint, the matter is very simple: If you grant their request (whether by signing or otherwise expressing your acceptance), you would be waiving any remedies currently available to you for their breach of contract. The company's attempt to override its contract with you is quite naive, but the company can always (and evidently does) try to get away with its liability nonetheless. I would not be surprised if the company subsequently tries harder to intimidate you, but that does not change your legal position &amp; merits unless you sign the waiver the company is pursuing. Asking for your post-termination availability reinforces the notion of company's poor planning and subpar management.
An employer has a duty of care to employees and must take steps to ensure their safety. Notably: 125 (1) Without restricting the generality of section 124, every employer shall, in respect of every work place controlled by the employer and, in respect of every work activity carried out by an employee in a work place that is not controlled by the employer, to the extent that the employer controls the activity, ... (y) ensure that the activities of every person granted access to the work place do not endanger the health and safety of employees; (Canada Labour Code (R.S.C., 1985, c. L-2)) If there is a reasonable belief that the other employee is a danger to you, they should take reasonable steps to prevent this. If they choose to ignore this, they may be liable. Whether or not there is a reasonable belief they are a danger to you or others here is unclear. Being annoying or rude does not endanger you and they haven't made threats towards you (I assume, since you'd have mentioned otherwise).
IANAL, and as @GeorgeBailey suggests, you should ask one. That said, some aspects of your question are directly addressable with what we know. Does US law states anything about this? Yes. Federally this falls under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. §2511. Workplace monitoring generally falls under either the "System Administrator Exception" or under Consent. In general, continuing past a banner constitutes consent. Does company policy enforcement with such a warning over ride the right to not be subject to surveillance? In general, yes. You don't need to use the companies network if you don't want to consent - and they don't need to hire you if you don't want to use their network. But it's their network, and their rules apply. There are some nuances, and courts have found that the wording of the notice has made a difference in some cases, but overall, if the systems are properly posted with banners, then the employer may capture communications. See the "Bannering and Consent" section of this article from cybertelecom.org, e.g.: Even if no clicking is required, a user who sees the banner before logging on to the network has received notice of the monitoring. By using the network in light of the notice, the user impliedly consents to monitoring pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(c)-(d). Note that stored data is covered by different laws than communications. It's a nuance. Is it ethical to sniff all the data without giving any other warning than the logon banner? "Ethical" is a very different question than "Legal", and largely more subjective. Most employers require signed consent for monitoring as a condition of employment, and use banners thereafter. That is ethical by my definition, in that it meets or exceeds the requirements of the law, and does not mislead or use subterfuge. The tone of your question suggests you find it distasteful, and therefore probably it violates your personal code of ethics.