• New OSHA COVID-19 rules give nurses important rights to protect themselves

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Health and Safety Committee

By John Welsh, RN, MNA Health and Safety Committee member New OSHA COVID-19 rules give nurses important rights to protect themselves

This summer, the Biden Administration issued new workplace safety rules regarding COVID-19 that we believe give nurses important rights to protect themselves as the pandemic continues. While the COVID-19 vaccine and increased supply of Personal Protective Equipment have dramatically improved nurse safety compared to last year, COVID-19 remains dangerous, and healthcare workers remain vulnerable. These new rules are essential to hold employers accountable for worker safety. Technically, what the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration did was determine that employee exposure to COVID-19 presents a grave danger to workers in healthcare settings and issued Emergency Temporary Standards to address the issue. The document covers 900 pages. New requirements include: • All healthcare employers must have written infection control safety and implementation plans developed in consultation with non-management employees and their representatives. • Implementing lifesaving respiratory protection against aerosol transmission of the virus for nurses and other frontline healthcare workers caring for suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients. • Mandating wearing masks, screenings, physical distancing, and barriers in the workplace. However, fully vaccinated healthcare workers don’t have to wear masks or adhere to distancing requirements if they are in “well-defined areas where all employees are fully vaccinated.” • Employers are to send home any employee who tests positive for COVID-19, is suspected of being infected, or is symptomatic for defined periods of time. When that happens, healthcare employers with more than ten people on staff must continue paying workers who can’t operate remotely their normal salary up to $1,400 a week for the first two weeks they are absent. However, the exact amount may vary if workers are sick for a longer period. Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) and National Nurses United (NNU) leaders have welcomed these new standards. As of June, NNU reports that more than 400 RNs have died of COVID-19. In Minnesota, there have been 600,000 cases of COVID-19. More than seven percent of them were healthcare workers. This is the first time OSHA has used emergency temporary standards in nearly 40 years, and they did so despite opposition from hospitals. Union leaders believe these standards will become an important benchmark for protecting healthcare workers from infectious disease. “This is a major victory for those who have worked so hard to achieve this recognition of the terrible toll on nurses and other healthcare workers, against the malfeasance and resistance of employers and many elected officials,” said NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN in an announcement of the new standards. A year ago, we nurses were forced to re-use N-95 masks during multiple shifts. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. But one lesson from this pandemic is that we cannot trust our employers to put employee or patient safety over budget concerns. These new OSHA rules give nurses increased powers to challenge employers regarding unsafe practices. If you think your employer is not taking the necessary steps to protect you from COVID-19, contact your MNA leaders and consider filing a complaint through OSHA. To learn more about the new standards, visit osha.gov/ coronavirus/ets. For those reading the Accent online, click here for a summary of the new standards.

John Welsh, RN, is a nurse at Unity Hospital in Fridley and an MNA Health and Safety Committee member. He can be reached at welsc027@umn.edu

To file an OSHA complaint in: Minnesota: request more information at osha.compliance@state.mn.us or 1-877-470-6742. Iowa: call 515-725-5660 or email at oshacomplaints@iwd. iowa.gov Wisconsin or North Dakota: call 1-800-321-6742 or visit https://www.osha.gov/pls/osha7/eComplaintForm.html

How to file a complaint in different states

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Governmental Affairs Commission

By Rebekah Nelson, RN, CCRN, CPAN at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and MNA Governmental Affairs Commissioner MNA nurses help direct legislative change and improve workers’ lives

This legislative session, the Minnesota Nurses Association played a significant role in supporting legislation that supports healthcare workers serving in the pandemic, the Essential Workers Emergency Leave Act (EWELA). In a nutshell, this legislation would have provided retroactive paid leave for workers that were required to quarantine due to COVID-19 or a vaccine-related issue, needed to care for a family member with COVID-19, or cared for a child whose daycare or school was closed. In line with the priorities and goals of EWELA, lawmakers passed legislation to develop a $250 million fund for frontline, essential workers. It is incredibly exciting and an amazing accomplishment for MNA to be able to see this legislation’s progress from start to finish. The process started in the fall of 2020, when the first version of an emergency leave bill was introduced in a special session in the House. After several revisions, expansions, and collaboration with other labor unions, Representative Cedrick Frazier (DFL-New Hope) officially introduced HF41 on January 11, 2021, with the Senate version being introduced by Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul) a few weeks later. MNA heavily contributed to these bills, and in February, MNA members, leadership, and staff began meeting with legislators, including Governor Walz, asking them to support the bill. Throughout the summer, legislators have been working on how to best move forward with the $250M fund. A working group is meeting at the Minnesota State Capitol, where legislators have been hearing nurses’ and other workers’ needs and perspectives on pay during the pandemic. Several MNA nurses have testified in front of the Minnesota Frontline Worker Pay Working Group. You can view past testimony here or by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXtg790O_mc. MNA, along with fellow union allies, will continue to fight for support for essential workers at the Capitol. This entire process speaks to how unions like ours can directly affect legislation and change workers’ lives for the better. I do not work in a specialty area that directly cares for folks that are ill with COVID-19, but as a hospital employee, I do carry a significant level of risk and will periodically come into contact with patients that are positive for COVID-19. Early in the pandemic when there was a testing shortage, my department would see surgery patients that were required to test beforehand, but the test result was two weeks old because we could not get results returned any faster than that at the time. This meant that we were seeing untested patients in the middle of a pandemic. We now know that we need a negative test result within a few days to have confidence that a patient is not infected with COVID-19. I am sure that during this time, I had multiple unknown exposures, and later that fall, I had a high-risk exposure with a symptomatic COVID-19 patient that needed to be seen for an emergency surgery. The entire pandemic year was full of getting myself and my children tested, and quarantines/sick days for any little sniffle that I or my children had. I was in a situation where I was out of sick leave, more than once, and although my employer paid for my personal quarantines (at the time), they did not pay my salary when I had to keep my children home from school. Since the COVID-19 vaccines have been rolled out, my employer has stopped the paid COVID-19 leave program unless you can prove a work exposure, which may affect me negatively in the future. The disbursement of the $250 million Frontline Worker Fund is a good start in recognizing the sacrifices made by nurses and other frontline workers. As the Working Group responsible for deciding how to disburse the funds continues their work, frontline workers are continuing to make their voices heard. This fund could directly benefit me, my family, and so many other frontline workers and their families who had to quarantine or go without pay to keep their communities safe. Almost every RN I know is in the same situation. To date, I have been fortunate to have not contracted COVID-19, but to those nurses who did and needed extended periods of time off work, the Frontline Worker Fund would start to repay them for the sacrifices they made. And while the $250 million Fund is a good start, it is just that, a start. Frontline workers will continue to uplift each other and stand together to ensure that every worker who sacrificed will get paid back for the sacrifices they’ve made. Every MNA RN can advocate for their own needs and their patients’ needs through MNA’s legislative program. Contact our political organizers Cameron Fure, cameron.fure@mnnurses.org, and Zach Sias, zach.sias@mnnurses.org, if you would like to get involved. There are regular opportunities to contact your own elected representatives, attend events, and even testify at legislative hearings at the Capitol.