Update: On April 30 this legislative session in Tallahassee ended, and with that the OSHA bills and many other bills related to safety and health also died.

H359 and S154 contained language that would require public entities to follow both the General Industry and Construction OSHA regulations, along with the Division of Workers’ Compensation monitoring, tracking and posting losses using not only the current reporting rules but also following the OSHA definition of a recordable loss. This would have increased the budget and manpower of the Division of Workers’ Compensation. The House Bill died in the Committee on Governmental Affairs Policy and the Senate Bill died in the Committee on Banking and Insurance. The staffs from both main sponsors vowed to introduce the Bills again next session. Those lobbying for the passage of bills similar to these also vowed to keep pressing for OSHA regulations for public sector employees both on the state and federal level.

 

To read the bills, please use the following links:

 

Senate Bill and House Bill

 

The Florida Municipal Association for Safety & Health (FMASH), which is made up of public sector entities in the State of Florida, believes that bills similar to these, which require blanket coverage of regulations that don’t always assist with safety and health, are the wrong way to go. This organization has a proposal that will increase safety in the state, limit state and federal involvement, be cost effective for the local and state governments, and can be instituted in a shorter timeframe than any OSHA-type regulations. To see their proposal, click FMASH. FMASH will continue to lobby the Governor to enact this proposal.

 

Other bills that died relative to safety were the 17 bills that wished to control in some way driving and using a portable communication device (cell phones). Many passed their respective committees but died in Messages because of the ongoing debates of other bills the last week of the session. These bills ranged from total ban to not being able to text in a school zone. Because there were so many bills and sponsors, another attempt of creating one bill that could be easy passed is likely for the next session. To read these bills, this link will take you to House Bill H0041 which will also connect you to all the other related bills. H0041

 

Finally the Senate Bill S128 dealing with Beach Safety died in the Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation.

 

A bill that did pass and was signed into law was the Red Light Camera Bill H325. Some have said they do not believe that these cameras are going to be a deterrent to red light running and the accidents they cause. Safety and health professionals are going to be tracking the results of this program and hope to have hard data to support of disprove this assumption in the next coming months.