ASSE Urges Federal Court to Protect Employer Right to Determine Workplace Safety

Friday, March 7th

ASSE has joined in filing an amici curiae brief (http://www.asse.org/professionalaffairs/govtaffairs/docs/AmicusBriefto10thCir-FINAL.DOC) urging the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm a 2007 U.S. Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma ruling that found two so-called “forced entry laws”
(http://www.asse.org/professionalaffairs/govtaffairs/docs/page6-from-oklahoma_decision.pdf) in Oklahoma unconstitutional. The Oklahoma laws sought to prevent employers from setting workplace safety rules barring guns to be brought on employer property in a locked vehicle. ConocoPhillips and other employers filed suit against the state to protect their right to make their own safety decisions. The federal district court found in favor of the employers, holding that Oklahoma’s “forced entry laws” conflicted with the general duty clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owasrch.search_form?p_doc_type=oshact). Since federal law preempts state law, the OSH Act preempted the Oklahoma laws. As ASSE's current president said in ASSE's press release (http://www.asse.org/newsroom/release.php?pressRelease=1003), “We are pleased to be able to support employers’ most fundamental right, which is to determine how best to run their businesses and keep their employees and property safe. Employers hire our member safety, health and environmental (SH&E) professionals to determine just how best to protect workers. Whether, in their best judgment, protecting workers and property means keeping guns out of parking lots or not, that decision must be made by an employer and an SH&E professional. Those sometimes difficult decisions cannot be made by a state governor or legislature substituting political decisions for professional judgment about how best to protect workers under duties employers have under the OSH Act’s general duty clause.”