Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, HOUSE NEWS—Dems celebrate Workers Memorial Day by reintroducing Protecting America’s Workers Act, pushing back against OFCCP dismantling, (Apr 30, 2025)

By Pamela Wolf, J.D.

“Today, on Workers Memorial Day, we are called upon to honor the workers who have been killed or injured on the job and to prevent future tragedies by making workplaces safer.”

On April 28, 2025, House Democratic committee leaders used to occasion to reintroduce the Protecting America’s Workers Act, which would update and strengthen the modernize the Occupation Safety and Health Act (OSH Act). They also pushed back against changes at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) that they see as drastically dismantling protections against discrimination for federal contract workers, who make up one-fifth of the American workforce.

Protecting America’s Workers Act. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Democratic leader of House Committee on Education and Workforce, and Representative Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), a senior member, reintroduced the Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA) in response to the Trump Administration’s dismantling of workplace protections.

According to proponents, the bill “would meaningfully strengthen and modernize” the OSH Act for the first time in over 50 years. The legislation would ensure that employers promptly correct hazardous working conditions, protect whistleblowers from retaliation, and hold unscrupulous employers accountable for violations that cause illness, serious injury, or death to workers.

The fact sheet about the PAWA noted that since January 20, the Trump Administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE have proposed closing 11 OSHA field offices, slashed funding and staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and dismantled systems that enable workers to advocate for safer workplaces.

Strengthening and updating OSH Act. The Protecting America’s Workers Act would:

• Protect millions of workers by expanding OSHA coverage to 8.1 million state and local government employees in 24 states who currently have no right to a safe workplace;

• Ensure worker safety is protected by mandating that employers correct hazardous conditions in a timely manner;

• Reinstate an employer’s ongoing obligation to maintain accurate records of work-related illness and injuries, and reverse President Trump’s first-term Congressional Review Act resolution that undermined OSHA’s ability to hold employers accountable who violate requirements to record workplace injuries and illnesses;

• Improve whistleblower protection for workers who face retaliation for calling attention to unsafe working conditions;

• Update obsolete consensus standards that were adopted when OSHA was first enacted in 1970;

• Deter “high gravity” violations by providing authority for increased civil monetary penalties for serious or willful violations that cause death or serious bodily injury;

• Expand injury and illness records that employers are required to maintain and report in order to enable OSHA to more effectively target unsafe workplaces;

• Authorize felony penalties against employers who knowingly commit OSHA violations that result in death or serious bodily injury and extend such penalties to corporate officers and directors;

• Require OSHA to investigate all cases of death and serious injuries that occur within a place of employment;

• Establish rights for families of workers who were killed on the job by giving them the right to meet with OSHA investigators, receive copies of citations, and to have an opportunity to make a statement before any settlement negotiations; and

• Improve protections for workers in state OSHA plans by allowing the Secretary of Labor to assert concurrent enforcement authority in those states where the state OSHA program fails to meet minimum requirements needed to protect workers’ safety and health.

A version of the PAWA was introduced on Workers Memorial Day in the last Congress (2023-2024) but failed to advance beyond committee assignment.

“Today, on Workers Memorial Day, we are called upon to honor the workers who have been killed or injured on the job and to prevent future tragedies by making workplaces safer,” said Rep. Bobby Scott. “The Protecting America's Workers Act makes long overdue improvements to the enforcement provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, expands coverage to millions of workers who are currently excluded from the law's protections, and strengthens whistleblower protections. These reforms are critical to deterring the most serious violations that endanger workers’ safety on the job. Passing this bill would be a major step toward ensuring our nation's workers can do their jobs and come home safely to their families at the end of the day.”

Pushing back against OFCCP changes. In opposition to what they called the Trump Administration’s “drastic cuts to OFCCP staff,” Democratic leaders on the House Committees on Education and Workforce and Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter to Catherine Eschbach, Director of the OFCCP. According to Representatives Bobby Scott (D-Va) and Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va), these cuts will “leave millions of federal contract workers vulnerable to discrimination in the workplace, and without the resources to advocate for themselves.”

Change in policy and protections. President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order (EO) 11246 with the aim of protecting federal contract workers, who currently comprise one fifth of the U.S. labor force, from unlawful discrimination. Shortly thereafter, the OFCCP was established in 1965. But on January 21, 2025, President Trump, via EO 14173, revoked EO 11246, leaving federal contract workers vulnerable to discrimination in the workplace and instructing the OFCCP to cease its current work investigation federal contractors for unfair working practices.

EO 14173 instructed the OFCCP to “immediately cease promoting ‘diversity;’ holding federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for ‘affirmative action;’ and allowing or encouraging federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin,” the letter notes. In response, then Acting Secretary of Labor, Vince Micone, ordered the OFCCP to cease and desist all investigative and enforcement activity under EO 11246 and the regulations promulgated under it, which included all pending cases, conciliation agreements, investigations, complaints, and any other enforcement-related or investigative activity.

Lost protections. Among other things, the letter points out that in addition to charging the OFCCP with protecting federal contract workers against discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national original, the now revoked EO 11246 charged the agency with protecting against discrimination based on disability and veteran’s status under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, respectively.

‘Drastic cuts.’ Moreover, on February 25, 2025, the OFCCP informed then-Secretary Micone that it planned to reduce its footprint from 55 offices to four offices and from 479 employees to 50 employees, the Democratic leaders noted. “Cuts of this magnitude, combined with the halting OFCCP’s EO 11246 enforcement activity, will leave workers increasingly vulnerable to discrimination and unfair hiring practices when they pursue work with federal contractors,” they wrote.

Request for information. “Americans deserve fairness and respect in any workplace, especially workplaces funded by taxpayer dollars in service to the country, yet these actions undermine equal opportunity for federal contract workers and leave them vulnerable to discrimination,” the letter states. “To ensure Congress and the American people understand the full impact of the Trump Administration’s actions to dismantle OFCCP, we request information on the Agency’s operations, capacity, and ability to uphold its historic mission to safeguard the rights of workers.”

Exercising the Committees’ oversight responsibilities, the Democratic leaders demanded that Director Eschbach provide Congress, and the American people, with vital information on pending cases that were abandoned after President Trump rescinded EO 11246, as well as insight into the future of the agency and its ability to protect workers from discrimination with extremely limited staff.

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