“Going to work should not mean putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in danger. It is time for OSHA to issue a permanent standard and protect nurses and health care workers who are on the front lines working to save the lives of others.” — Bonnie Castillo, RN, National Nurses United executive director Share now »

Yesterday, National Nurses United spearheaded legal action to protect nurses, other health care workers, our patients, and our communities while we are fighting on the front lines of this pandemic.

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has publicly stated that it intends to rescind the hard-fought, hard-won emergency temporary standard (ETS) that requires our employers to protect health care workers while we battle surge after surge.

To stop this dangerous move, we, along with the AFL-CIO and other major unions representing nurses and other health care workers around the country, have petitioned the court to issue a writ of mandamus ordering OSHA to:

1. Establish a permanent standard for health care occupational exposure to Covid-19 “aimed at protecting the life and health of millions of nurses and other frontline health care workers throughout the United States in grave danger from the deadly Covid-19 pandemic” and
2. Retain and enforce the emergency temporary standard until the permanent standard takes effect.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, frontline health care workers have witnessed how employers, without federal OSHA rules in place, denied personal protective equipment, avoided proper testing and isolation practices, and ignored infection control protocols.

It is shocking, insulting, and reckless that OSHA — whose fundamental purpose and duty is to protect workers — would threaten such action at a time like this, with Covid cases breaking records, and when health care worker infections and deaths from the disease have nearly doubled from when the ETS originally took effect in June 2021.

Having any gap in a national, enforceable standard to protect health care workers is unacceptable and violates the Occupational Safety and Health Act. OSHA’s refusal to issue a national, permanent, enforceable standard requiring employers to protect workers in health care settings is an extremely dangerous breach of its duties.

We must apply maximum pressure on OSHA: You can help by sharing our response far and wide. Will you retweet NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN now?

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Or, if you don’t use social media, simply forward this email to your friends and family to help spread the word!

We will keep fighting until we have a permanent standard that protects health care workers, so we can stay focused on saving the lives of patients.

In solidarity,

National Nurses United