In July, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a proposal to exclude “inherently risky professions,” including those in sports and entertainment, from the agency’s General Duty Clause.
This carve-out would mean that when a worker in these industries experiences an injury or accident not already covered by a specific regulatory standard, they’d be left without any agency protections.
By the agency’s own estimates, the new interpretation could immediately affect more than 115,000 athletes, musicians, and other entertainment workers.
[S]ome labor experts say the move can be traced back to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Trump and Elon Musk’s initiative to target federal agencies and spending.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest federation of unions in the United States, alleged in a press release that the proposal, along with the proposal to remove requirements for construction illumination, which could increase trips and falls on the jobsite, came from the department.
“From what we have heard, [the decision to limit the General Duty Clause] was a DOGE pick, and the construction illumination deregulatory action was a DOGE pick,” a policy expert at the labor federation who requested anonymity to protect their sources’ identities told the Lever. “These were both ideological proposals versus DOGE telling the staff, ‘Go find things to deregulate.’”
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