ACTION ALERT: Please Ask Legislators to OPPOSE HB923 Which Requires Employers to Enforce Illness Prevention Measures in the Workplace
TEXT OF HB923 – Labor and Employment – Worker Safety and Health – Injury and Illness Prevention Program:
Requiring employers with 10 or more employees, or whose rate of work-related injury and illness exceeds the average incidence rate of all industries in the State to develop and implement a health and safety committee to promote health and safety in the workplace; providing for the membership, meetings, and duties of the committee; requiring that the committee maintain certain records and retain the records for a certain period of time; requiring each employer to establish and maintain an injury and illness prevention program; etc.
Note: This bill is cross-filed with SB728. Please look for a separate call to action from us for this bill.
why icm opposes HB923
- The premise and substance of this bill is fundamentally infeasible, invasive, and unconstitutional. The bill seeks to compel private employers and small businesses, even as small as 10 employees, to create internal infrastructure for the purpose of defining, continually monitoring, and enforcing unique health and safety standards of "prevention."
- The requirements of employers defined in this bill are fundamentally redundant. OSHA defines industry safety standards and requirements of compliance for employers in Maryland and other states. Requiring small businesses in particular to establish employee committees and pay them to convene regularly to redefine, monitor, and enforce standards replicates the tax dollars allocated to OSHA to engage trained specialists to accomplish these goals efficiently. Additionally, the bill requires training for all employees above and beyond current requirements established by OSHA and the Department of Health. Private employers should not and cannot reasonably assume this unnecessary financial burden.
- The bill makes frequent reference to "work-related injury and illness" without defining the parameters of what illnesses, including infectious communicable diseases, might be considered "work-related." While it is the responsibility of employers to invest in structurally safe work spaces and practices which prevent genuinely work-related injuries, employers cannot and should not be required to eradicate standard existence and transmission of common microbes from the workplace. Industries which specifically necessitate protection and containment of contagious pathogens, such as health care and food service, already have guidelines established by industry professionals and the Department of Health. These guidelines and implementation procedures should not be superseded or negated by burdensome individual committees in each workplace where they are needed; and workplaces outside those specific industries should not be held to extraneous and unreasonable standards of pathogen containment.
- This bill seeks to penalize and monitor any businesses where work-related injuries or illnesses "exceed the average incidence rate of all industries...during the immediately preceeding [sic] fiscal year." This language belies a fundamental misunderstanding of risk mitigation and math. If all businesses are expected not to exceed the average incidence, then the incidence rate must be zero. (That is the definition of an average: necessarily, some businesses will have incidence rates above the average, and others will have lower than average incidence rates. The only way in which no businesses remain in the "above average incidence" category is to have zero instances of injury or illness.)
- By additionally penalizing businesses which exceed the state average of injury or illnesses, this bill creates distorted incentives which may discriminate against certain populations in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Businesses certainly must reduce or eliminate workplace hazards when possible; which is why OSHA and the DOH establish standards defining what can and cannot be reduced. However, some industries are necessarily more hazardous than others, and the market dictates the higher rates of compensation and necessary skill sets in these industries. Furthermore, with regard to illness, certain populations, such as individuals with physical disabilities, may be more prone to infectious illnesses or accidents incurred at the workplace than the general population. These employees may be injured or ill more often through no fault of the employer; if employers are liable for their overall rate of illness, they are incentivized to discriminate against vulnerable employees.
- This bill seeks to compel businesses to meet health and safety requirements by maintaining employee committees with specific ratios of "managerial to non-managerial" employees. This bill, if enacted, would in essence be a statewide human experiment which seeks to transfer the functional responsibility of established and effective public agencies to ensure workplace safety with a convoluted and heretofore untested internal workplace structure, which would implement constant, insidious peer-to-peer policing and reporting of transgressions in the workplace. One is hard-pressed to imagine a more costly, counterproductive concept for maintaining health and safety, or a more efficient way to poison peer interactions and work relationships.
Who to contact about HB923
There will be a hearing for HB923 before the Economic Matters Committee on 3/5/21 at 1:30 PM.
URGENT: We’re asking all members to contact the bill sponsor Delegate Peña-Melnyk, and to call and email the members of Economic Matters Committee, and let them know, in your own words, why you oppose HB923.
Please call and email Delegate Peña-Melnyk, and leave comments on her Facebook Page
Delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk
Phone 410-841-3502 | 301-858-3502 Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3502
e-mail: joseline.peña.melnyk@house.state.md.us
If you’re a constituent of hers – in District 21 – let her know!
Please copy and paste the following email addresses of the Economic Matters Committee members into the BCC section of your email in opposition of HB923:
Please call the offices of the Economic Matters Committee members in opposition of HB923:
Delegate Dereck E. Davis
Phone 410-841-3519 | 301-858-3519
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3519
Delegate Kathleen M. Dumais
Phone 410-841-3052 | 301-858-3052
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3052
Delegate Christopher T. Adams
Phone 410-841-3343 | 301-858-3343
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3343
Delegate Steven J. Arentz
Phone 410-841-3543 | 301-858-3543
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3543
Delegate Talmadge Branch
Phone 410-841-3398 | 301-858-3398
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3398
Delegate Benjamin Brooks
Phone 410-841-3352 | 301-858-3352
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3352
Delegate Ned Carey
Phone 410-841-3047 | 301-858-3047
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3047
Delegate Lorig Charkoudian
Phone 410-841-3423 | 301-858-3423
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3423
Delegate Brian M. Crosby
Phone 410-841-3227 | 301-858-3227
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3227
Delegate Diana M. Fennell
Phone 410-841-3478 | 301-858-3478
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3478
Delegate Mark N. Fisher
Phone 410-841-3231 | 301-858-3231
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3231
Delegate Seth A. Howard
Phone 410-841-3439 | 301-858-3439
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3439
Delegate Rick Impallaria
Phone 410-841-3289 | 301-858-3289
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3289
Delegate Carl Jackson
Phone 410-841-3766 | 301-858-3766
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3766
Delegate Johnny Mautz
Phone 410-841-3429 | 301-858-3429
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3429
Delegate Jesse T. Pippy
Phone 410-841-3118 | 301-858-3118
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3118
Delegate Lily Qi
Phone 410-841-3090 | 301-858-3090
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3090
Delegate Pam Queen
Phone 410-841-3380 | 301-858-3380
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3380
Delegate Mike Rogers
Phone 410-841-3372 | 301-858-3372
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3372
Delegate Veronica Turner
Phone 410-841-3212 | 301-858-3212
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3212
Delegate Kriselda Valderrama
Phone 410-841-3210 | 301-858-3210
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3210
Delegate Jay Walker
Phone 410-841-3581 | 301-858-3581
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3581
Delegate Courtney Watson
Phone 410-841-3077 | 301-858-3077
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3077
Delegate C. T. Wilson
Phone 410-841-3325 | 301-858-3325
Toll-free in MD 1-800-492-7122 ext. 3325
Please note: Rules for submitting written and oral testimony have changed this year due to Covid-19 restrictions, and can be viewed here. We’re asking members for phone calls, emails, and written testimony only at this time.
Please spread the word! Let’s flood the offices of Delegate Peña-Melnyk and the Economic Matters committee members with polite, respectful, forceful emails and phone calls. They need to hear our voices!
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