Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, OSHA NEWS—Where have all the documents gone and why?, (Feb 19, 2025)

By Pamela Wolf, J.D.

And will the nomination of former UPS and Amazon safety executive David Keeling hinder or advance the interests of worker safety?

Since President Donald Trump took office on January 20, 2025, there have been no updates to OSHA’s website concerning agency actions against violators. Nor has the Department of Labor posted any such updates. However, Democrats have raised concerns about reports that OSHA has removed and potentially destroyed several key documents related to worker-safety.

OSHA nominee. Questions have also been raised about President Trump’s February 11 nomination of David Keeling to head OSHA. Keeling previously oversaw safety at UPS and Amazon when both companies were cited for violations, according to Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), which describes itself as “a grassroots organization of thousands of members across North America, working together to rebuild Teamster Power.” The union said that Keeling worked as director of safety compliance at UPS from 2011 to 2018, and as a senior safety executive at Amazon. The TDU has criticized Amazon for having one of the worst safety records in the country. In 2019, OSHA cited UPS for fire safety hazards and for forcing Teamster members to work in excessive heat, the TDU observed, claiming that the “company continues to drag its feet on installing air conditioning in trucks.”

On his LinkedIn account, Keeling wrote that “if confirmed, I am excited about the opportunity to work with Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer and Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling to further OSHA's mission to enhance workplace safety and health.”

NOSHA Act. OSHA’s very existence has also been threatened, although not for the first time. Pre-dating the Trump Administration, Representative Andy Biggs (R-Az.), on January 3, 2025, set his sights on the agency with his introduction of “Nullify the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (NOSHA) Act, H.R. 86. The proposed legislation would abolish OSHA and its functions, which include setting and enforcing workplace safety and health standards and providing related training, outreach, education, and assistance. Biggs introduced NOSHA bills in 2021 and 2023, but the proposed legislation never moved beyond referral to committee.

Document removal and destruction. On February 13, Democratic leaders Bobby Scott (D-Va.) on the House Committee on Education and Workforce, and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, sent a letter to Vince Micone, Acting Secretary of the Trump Administration’s Department of Labor (DOL), demanding that the department cease any destruction of documents, refocus its mission to protect workers’ lives and livelihoods, and provide a response requested information and documentation by February 28, 2025.

“It is our understanding that DOL is instructing staff not simply to erase these documents from the Internet but, worse, to destroy any physical copies,” the lawmakers wrote. Specifically, the Democrats are concerned that documents may have been destroyed simply because of their use of words related to “diversity” and “gender,” regardless of the context in which those words were used. The lawmakers pointed to what they cited as now-missing documents from the website including guidance related to:

• Protecting workers from toxic chemical exposures;

• Preventing workplace violence in health care facilities; and

• Identifying ergonomic hazards and preventing crippling musculoskeletal disorders in nursing.

The lawmakers cited missing workplace violence guidance that describes “one health care facility’s creative approaches as including an effort by managers to assemble ‘a diverse group of trainers—bedside nurses, team leaders, nursing supervisors, human resources staff, critical care personnel, medical/surgical staff, and security workers—with the aim of providing mentors, coaches, and ‘champions’ throughout the hospital.”’ Another example is guidance for emergency medical services (EMS) responders treating and transporting victims of toxic emergencies that refers to ‘“diverse conditions under which EMS responders would work,’ the ‘numerous and diverse local programs’ regulating EMS responders, and the ‘diversity of roles and risks’ in EMS work that ‘must be taken into consideration when identifying best practices.”’ A third example cited missing ergonomics guidelines that “all advise employers that gender can be a factor, along with age and length of service, in a worker’s risk of musculoskeletal injury” (footnotes omitted from all quotations).

Document ‘purge’ directive. Separately, progressive, online accountability journalism website, Popular Information’s author Judd Legum and its reporter Rebecca Crosby, expressed concern about OSHA’s removal of documents and posted what it described as an internal OSHA email providing staff with a list of documents that should be removed from the agency’s website and offices, and disposed of or recycled. ‘“If you have wallet cards that include language, or can be interpreted, on DEIA or gender ideology, please dispose of them as well,”’ the email states.

The list of 18 publications, includes:

• A Roadmap for Healthcare Facilities (Workplace Violence);

• Safety and Health Programs – Construction;

• Restroom Access for Transgender Workers, Best Practices;

• Assigned Protection Factors Guide for the Revised Respiratory Standard (APF);

• Small Entity Compliance for the Respiratory Protection Standard; and

• Workplace Mental Health Fact Sheet.

Popular Information said that it had obtained and reviewed archived versions of nearly all of the 18 “purged” documents. Only one of them, apparently obtained through the “WayBack Machine” internet archive, Restroom Access for Transgender Workers, Best Practices, has anything to do with DEIA issues. “That publication details federal and state legal precedent that recognizes ‘the core principle that employees should be allowed to use the restrooms that correspond to their gender identity,”’ wrote the Popular Information authors. “All of the targeted publications, however, include a keyword related to diversity or gender.”

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