[The Brian Lehrer Show Intro]

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. New York City is on track to enter Phase Three of New York State's Four-Phase reopening on July 6. That's a week from today, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio last week. That next phase allows for things including indoor dining, manicures and tattooing. Meanwhile, other parts of the state, like Long Island and the Mid-Hudson Valley are already on for Phase Three. And further north in the Mohawk Valley, for example, the Finger Lakes and Central New York, businesses are already at Phase Four, with workers coming back to their jobs in New York State. Will they be safe? Joining me now to talk about what kinds of safety precautions employers are required to put in place as more businesses open amid the pandemic is Charlene Obernauer, Executive Director at the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, NYCOSH. Charlene, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for coming on.

Charlene Obernauer: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we want to open up the phones to you right away on this. Are you back at work as part of Phase One or Phase Two reopening? What sort of protocols has your employer put in place to keep you safe? And do you actually feel safe or have some of you refused to go back to work? And why did you come to that decision? And though my guest is from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, this obviously applies to New Jersey and Connecticut and other states that are in the midst of reopening, too. We know that today is Phase Two day in New Jersey. So tweet at Brian Lehrer or give us a call right now with your stories or your questions about safety in various kinds of workplaces and how government regulation and monitoring and enforcement might need to play a role. (646) 435-7280. That's (646) 435-7280. So a big part of coming back to work, especially if people are working indoors, is having the right protective equipment. What kind of PPE do employers need to provide workers? And I realize every, you know, there's a million different kinds of jobs out there. But in office buildings, in restaurants, where would you start?

Charlene Obernauer: Well, I think when we're looking at PPE, it really depends on the risk of, you know, what is the risk of exposure for that particular individual. And so if you're talking about an office, what the New York State requires is that you have any kind of acceptable face covering. So that could be a surgical mask. It could be a face shield. It could be a bandana. It could be, you know, an N-95. But it's, you know, we're not looking at a healthcare industry. So we're really just looking at some kind of face covering that would be adequate. And similarly, when we're looking at restaurants, if we're looking at outdoor dining, we know we're looking at the same, if we're looking at indoor dining in terms of PPE. So this is, again, face covering. I mean, N-95s are great because they block against airborne particles and aerosols. But you can, the state does allow you to use any kind of face covering that would be acceptable.

Brian Lehrer:  In the early weeks of the pandemic, we were hearing stories about how healthcare workers in particular were required to attempt to sterilize their N-95s because of the shortage. What if an employer tells workers to do that now with whatever kind of mask, either because they don't have access to masks to distribute to workers, or because maybe they want to save money?

Charlene Obernauer: Well, employers are required to provide workers with PPE. Right. And, you know, I know that there's a PPE shortage in terms of N-95s and that's a lot of the discussion around why they need to be reused and sanitized and everything else. And that's a whole, you know, conversation in terms of how safe is that within the healthcare industry. But within other industries, there really is no need for workers to have to sanitize their own masks, for workers to have to, you know, be at risk from being exposed to COVID because they're ultimately themselves responsible for cleaning their own masks. So employers should really be providing workers with masks themselves and not requiring workers to be doing that kind of cleaning that they likely have no experience, no training, no expertise in doing and are not going to be able to do safely.

Brian Lehrer: Is it up to workers to maintain six feet for social distancing in the workplace, or does the employer need to ensure that happens by physically reconfiguring the workplace or doing other things?

Charlene Obernauer: Workplace health and safety is always the employer's responsibilities. So at the end of the day, if the employer's responsibility to train workers on how to be safe. It's the employer's responsibility to make sure that they set up the facility to actually be safe. So, of course, if the worker has been trained, if the workplace has been set up for social distancing and everything else, then there is some responsibility that is on the worker. But ultimately, the bigger responsibility is on the employer to provide that safe and healthy workplace.

Brian Lehrer: And for Phase Three of reopening, which in New York City starts next week, nail salons and tattoo parlors will reopen, for example. How can nail technicians and tattoo artists maintain a distance of six feet from their clients? Or if they can't, then what's considered safe by your group, NYCOSH?

Charlene Obernauer: Well, with nail salon, specifically, what we're looking for is to make sure that there are protective shields that are installed, that workers have the right personal protective equipment, including gowns, including face shields and face masks, and also that there's adequate ventilation within the facilities themselves. This is something that we've been talking about in nail salons for years now, that it's not just now that the chemicals that workers are exposed to, need to have adequate ventilation. It's also that COVID-19, there needs to be adequate ventilation so that if customers are breathing out air, that's potentially infectious, that workers have the adequate ventilation to make sure that they're being protected. And, of course, physical distancing is going to be key. A lot of nail salons are reconfiguring the way that they're actually set up so that you don't have one customer next to another customer next to another customer. And you have that kind of social distancing in place, both with pedicures, manicures and with other procedures. But ultimately, we want to make sure that those workers feel safe and that those workers have the PPE that's necessary in order to do their job safely. And, you know, overwhelmingly, workers in the nail salon industry, in particular, which we can speak to because of the work we do there, you know, they don't really feel safe going back to work. They don't feel like there's enough in place in their specific workplaces to make them feel safe. And it is a big investment on the part of the employer, right? To put up all of these social distancing measures to put up all of these shields. But these are really the kinds of protocols that need to be put in place so that workers feel safe and so that, you know, clients feel safe going, going into the actual nail salons. I mean, we're talking about workers who've been out of work for months, and these are already low wage, primarily Asian and Latina immigrant workers. They need to be able to go back to work, but they also need to be able to go back to work safely.

Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us, my guest is Charlene Obernauer, Executive Director at the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. As we talk about best practices and the rules for businesses as they reopen to adequately protect their workers. And we are going to take your questions and stories now. (646) 435-7280. (646) 435-7280. Kim in Rockland County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kim.

Caller (Kim): Hi. So, we opened on June 15th. We started going back into the building. It was just full timers and then eventually part timers. So my boss, our director, she's doing the health check-ins. So when we come in, we test our temperature and we fill out this questionnaire and then we hand it to her. So Wednesday of last week, she felt sick, talked to her doctor and was told to go get tested. But she hasn't gotten her results back yet and won't get them until hopefully later today. I've been working from home since, since I heard that she was tested, but other people haven't. So my question is, "Why when she was told to get tested, why didn't we shut down the entire building, send everybody back to working from home and disinfect everything because every single person that have come into the building has had contact with her?"

Brian Lehrer: Charlene?

Charlene Obernauer: Mm hmm. Well, that's a really great, great question. And I think that for a lot of workplaces, the best practice, if you have somebody that has potentially, potentially has COVID, the best practice is to have that person get tested. And for anyone who's been in contact with that person, to also stay home, get tested, make sure that they aren't putting other people at risk. And further, there has to be disinfection of the facility itself to make sure that any place that that worker has been in contact with is being adequately disinfected. So that definitely does raise big red flags for me in terms of what should be, what should be protocol. You don't want to have your workers being exposed to a risk like that and then potentially exposing more and more people in your workplace.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious, Kim, if any of the workers have approached the boss and said, "Wait, this is not safe. What we're doing is not safe. We have to shut down this business until we know at least whether your test is positive."

Caller (Kim): So far, I don't, I don't know and I don't think so. I've been really struggling, feeling like I'm the boy who cried wolf or something, that people aren't reliably wearing their mask. People aren't staying six feet apart. And I feel like I'm the only one complaining and the only one saying I don't feel safe going into work.

Brian Lehrer: Mmm. And then you get to worry about your job security-- if you were to speak up and speak the truth as you see it. Right?

Caller (Kim): Right. And I'm a manager, so I'm responsible for, for people in my department. So I have that to worry about, too. And I've been scheduling people.

Charlene Obernauer: Can I ask you something?

Caller (Kim): I haven't sent my team home. Mmm hmm.

Brian Lehrer: Charlene, go ahead.

Charlene Obernauer: Do you have a written, a written plan of what would happen in an instance like this? Because as a manager, you know, one of the best practices that we can implement is thinking about what are our written plans and how can we have employee input on the plan that we are actually putting in place to protect the workforce. So that would be a really good first place to start. You know, it sounds like you have a little crisis going on in your workplace and maybe it's time to talk to other managers about just getting a written plan in place.

Caller (Kim): Yeah, we've been working on the written plan, but I had so many questions about it and we just continued full steam ahead. I felt like I was the only manager asking all these questions and really expressing concern. And no one else seemed to have the same questions and everyone else seemed to just be fine to go back to work. I think people were just going crazy being at home and just wanted things to go back to normal. But for me, I feel like things are not normal.

Charlene Obernauer: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. No, they aren't. And we need to make sure that we have the plans in place to protect workers and, and to protect everybody that's coming into that building and making sure that we have that as a priority, especially now when we're hearing of all of these cases and all of these crises really in other states. We're starting to reopen and we don't want to have that same thing happen here.

Brian Lehrer: And we've been lingering with Kim, even though we have so many other callers waiting on the line with their own stories and questions. But in an agonizing situation like that, is it something that your group, NYCOSH, would ever get involved with or that the state should get involved with, as they struggle internally with what to do and even what to say?

Charlene Obernauer: We definitely can. I mean, one thing that I would put out there to all your listeners is that, on the first hand, we have daily COVID-19 briefings that we hold every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So you can go to our website nycosh.org, and you could come to our briefing, ask questions, you can enter them in the chat box on Zoom, or you can just ask your question and we can advise you in that way. Also, if you have questions specifically about your workplace policy and your written plan, you can send us an email. You can send me personally an email, charlene@nycosh.org. And we can help direct you to the right person on our staff to give you input on what your plan should look like, because a lot of people are in the position where they're writing plans, and they're going through all of these government guides, and they don't know what the right plan is for their industry, for their specific workplace. And we can certainly be a resource to help you with that.

Brian Lehrer: So, Kim, if you do that and write to charlene@nycosh.org, do reference that you spoke to her here, and I'm sure you will get a response. Kim, thank you for your call and good luck with everything. Heather in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Heather.

Caller (Heather): Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: OK. How are you?

Caller (Heather): Oh right. Sorry. This is my first time on. I love your show. I heard that you were taking calls about workers' experiences. Now that things are, quote unquote, trying to go back to the new normal.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Caller (Heather): And in my particular industry, we have had issues with sanitation before the pandemic was even an issue. We don't have a custodial staff. We have cleaning people that come in at the end of the day and they'll sweep up and they'll change garbage cans and wipe down bathrooms and things. But nothing as far as deep cleaning goes. And as far as I and other workers at our facility know, nothing has changed as far as that goes. We all have to use a biometric scanner for our punch clock. So multiple people are using it multiple times a day and that's not getting wiped down. Nobody's going around making sure door handles or areas that are touched by multiple people are being wiped down. It's just on the workers themselves. And most people don't really take it upon themselves to wipe everything down. And nobody else is doing it really. And I'm sure that's not an isolated case. I'm sure other people are experiencing the same thing in their facilities. So basically, we all just kind of feel a little confused and also helpless because we don't know what else to do, we show up to work and, you know, we wear masks, but that's really about it. There's nothing really else we follow that anybody else feels like they're being protected in any extra way.

Brian Lehrer: Charlene, is there anything else that they can do? What advice to Heather?

Charlene Obernauer: Well, if you feel like you've already gone through the process of trying to talk to management and trying to implement some of these changes, and you feel like you've already done what you can, you can file a complaint. And, you know, I kind of say this with a grain of salt, because one of the big things that we've been hearing is that, you know, complaints kind of seem to enter into the abyss a little bit and there needs to be more in the way of enforcement. But I do feel hopeful that if you are raising some of these issues, that you can get a response. There are three real ways that I would suggest filing complaints. One of them is with the New York State Department of Labor. They have a complaint, a complaint form that you can fill out online and you can do so anonymously and enter the information about your workplace. The second is the Attorney General's Office. The Attorney General's Office has put out their resources as a way for workers to file complaints. And I can give that number on the air if you'd like, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Charlene Obernauer: So the Attorney General's Office is (212) 416-8700. Again, it's (212) 416-8700. And that's for any industry, for any worker in which, you know, you don't feel safe in your workplace, and there are protocols that are put out that aren't being followed, you can definitely call. And the third, which I have a big grain of salt with, is to file an OSHA complaint. OSHA, unfortunately, has, you know, a lot of issues with enforcement right now. They aren’t doing a lot of enforcement. They don't have a lot of inspectors.

Brian Lehrer: But just for people who don't know that, that's OSHA- stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is part of the federal government.

Charlene Obernauer: Exactly. Exactly. And so you can file an OSHA complaint and that's 1-800-321-6742. Again, 1-800-321-6742. But ultimately, I think that enforcement needs to be in place and there needs to be stronger enforcement. So in the absence of that enforcement, one of the best things that we can try to do is try to come up with plans with our employers and try to bring workers together to advocate for those plans. And I know that's a really scary thing to talk about. That's the really scary thing to do when you're a worker in a facility where you don't feel safe. So I also note that and note that that's a really brave, a really brave act that workers can take to say my workplace isn't safe and I want to do something about it.

Brian Lehrer: And I know that NYCOSH, your group is a New York State focused organization. The caller is in Bergen County, so she's in New Jersey. Do you happen to know if the New Jersey Attorney General's Office is doing a similar kind of enforcement with written standards as New York?

Charlene Obernauer: I know that the New Jersey Department of Labor is taking cases. I don't know about the New Jersey Attorney General in particular. No, I don't.

Brian Lehrer: Heather. Hopefully that's helpful. Thank you for calling in. Nina on Staten Island. You're on WNYC. Hello, Nina.

Caller (Nina): Hi, Brian. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you just fine.

Caller (Nina): OK, great. I love your show, Brian. Thanks for everything you're doing, especially today. So I'm an independent contractor. I travel to people's homes all over the New York metro area to treat them for head lice. I don't feel safe going back to work at all because all the safety measures are incumbent upon me. And I don't feel that I can actually trust my clients to be knowledgeable, let's just say that, about potential symptoms of COVID. The last client I had in March told me no one was sick. But when I got there, one of my clients was coughing a lot. Fortunately, I didn't catch anything, but I was wearing a surgical mask then. I have to stand within 14 inches approximately, next to my clients for hours on end. And I just don't feel there's any PPE that I can use that will protect me. So I have asked my doctor to write a letter outlining my risk factors, of which I have a few, and saying that she does not recommend that I return to work. I find myself scared that I'll lose my unemployment, insurance. I mean, I like doing what I do, and I miss it. But right now I'm dependent on unemployment and I'm scared I'll lose it because they'll say, well, you could have done this and you could have done that. I've thought it through carefully. I don't know. Am I in a gray area?

Brian Lehrer: You know, first of all, one headline for our listeners today. Head lice technician likes her work, but that's...

Caller (Nina): Oh, I do. I do. My clients really appreciate me.

Brian Lehrer: And is it not just feeling people's heads to diagnose whether they have lice, but actually doing some kind of treatment for people for who it occurs?

Caller (Nina): Oh, yeah, I'm treating them. I'm combing them for hours on end, so I'm standing within 14 inches. Typically, afterwards there's an inspection through lighted magnification where your head, my head is within six inches of the client's head for, you know, a bit. So I just don't feel, you know, if there's ever a profession that requires right next to the client for extended periods of time. It's mine.

Brian Lehrer: It is yours. So, Charlene, I mean, there's a few issues that Nina raises. One is that she asked at the end of her original statement, if she feels unsafe in her line of work because of risk factors she has and how close the contact has to be with her clients. Would that disqualify her from unemployment? Because technically she's been offered her job back but doesn't feel she can go?

Charlene Obernauer: Mmm hmmm. Well, first to put out there, it sounds like, you know, you're in a really tough spot and I'm sorry you're going through this, but I'm not an unemployment expert, so I can't really speak to whether or not you would still be eligible for unemployment. What I can say is that, you know, we're in a really difficult situation right now because folks are trying to balance economic necessity, right, returning to work, with potentially putting themselves at risk. And that's something that a lot of workers are, are facing. And furthermore, in your particular industry, you're, you know, basically asking people to self-assess whether or not they've had COVID in the home, which is impossible to do unless they've just been tested because you can have asymptomatic transmission of COVID. So even if they don't have any symptoms, they still could be infectious and, and could be a large risk factor for you. I wonder, you know, even though barber shops are open, it sounds like you are in a bit of a gray area, because similarly, even though we have some professional services open, I know facials aren't allowed in, in any of the phases. They haven't announced when facials are going to be able to be brought back. So it may be a little bit of a gray area, and I'm not sure if you know specifically. Have you been specifically advised that your particular work is allowable in this current phase?

Caller (Nina): Yeah, I've gotten conflicting information. I do know some companies have opened back up and are sending their techs to the homes with some PPE, but it's up to the, because we're independent contractors, it's up to the techs to provide all that, which, you know, I wouldn't have a problem with. But is everybody knowledgeable about how to obtain gown, visors, masks, gloves, et cetera? Well, we already use gloves, but no, they're not. And how to use them properly? Of course not. So I just, I just think that it's all, you know, we're counting too much on the opinions of many different people, meaning our clients, about whether they're well or not. And we're just going out there to all these different homes. You know.

Charlene Obernauer: Mmm hmmm.

Caller (Nina): I think on average, I probably check and treat three to four people in each home. So there's a lot of variability there. Lots of exposure to different...

Brian Lehrer: Mmm hmm.

Caller (Nina): situations and people.

Charlene Obernauer: And I would say…

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Charlene. Go ahead.

Charlene Obernauer: Yeah, I would say that, you know, the first thing I would want to do is get advice from the state as to whether or not the work that you're doing is even in one of the phases, because it's not explicitly noted in any of the literature that I've seen. So in order to do that, you can just quickly look up how to file a DOL complaint form. And you could just, even though, even if you don't want to file a complaint, that would at least get somebody from the Department of Labor in touch with you about your specific industry and about what kind of work is allowable. And I think that's an important first step just to figure out, is this really something that is allowable? Because to me, it does sound like a big gray area. And I just haven't seen any literature suggesting that this is allowable work.

Brian Lehrer: Nina, good luck. I hope this was somewhat helpful. And I guess Nina's question and situation generalizes to a lot of medical professionals. Right? I talked about on the show a couple of weeks ago, I went to the dentist and I talked about it. And dentists, except for emergencies, only recently allowed to reopen. And so there are all kinds of people in, in medical fields who have to have close contact with their patients. And I guess Nina kind of falls into that category.

Charlene Obernauer: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Definitely. And I think that in general, when we're looking at any field, what we have to think about is, you know, doing a hazard assessment, what are the hazards that workers are exposed to, looking at some kind of infection control plan. You know, how are we making sure that workers who are being exposed to infectious agents are getting the protection that they need. And then, what kind of training are workers getting? You know, how are they being trained to return to these workplaces? And I know that for a lot of people, they, they don't necessarily know where to go for something like that. They don't know where to go to to write their plans. And that's again, where I would put ourselves out there as a resource, you know, check us out on nycosh.org. And please do get in touch if you have questions and if we can be supportive of those return-to-work plans or anything else.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one more call before we run out of time. Candace in North Bergen, you're on WNYC. Hi, Candace.

Caller (Candace): Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a healthcare worker, and the standard of care prior to this pandemic was that for every patient interaction, you use your PPE once and you throw it away. So one mask per interaction if that interaction requires a mask. For the past four months, we've been reusing our masks. We, you know, certain hospitals and offices might give you one mask per day unless it's visibly soiled. We have not returned to the standard of care. So for all of this talk about going back to normal, in our healthcare environments, whether we're talking about hospitals, office settings, we're reusing masks, we're reusing gowns, hand sanitizer is in short supply. Some private, you know, like doctor's offices don't even have hand sanitizer. So we're going patient to patient without being able to wash our hands. And, you know, we're settling into this new normal where basic safety measures might not be in place in the absence of enforcement. We're not, you know, the science on infection control, it has not changed. It was the supply chain that changed the practice, not the standard of care.

Charlene Obernauer: Mmm hmmm.

Caller (Candace): And when you've got, when we're reopening the economy in a place where many people can't social distance because the nature of their jobs don't allow them to do so, just like the previous caller, you know, she needs gowns, she needs visors. She needs all of these different things that those of us in the hospital are rationalizing and going from an infected patient to an uninfected patient, and back and forth, with reused PPE. And that's a huge problem. With regards to, like, filing a complaint, when you file a complaint, like, that risk has already been endorsed, like you're filing a complaint after the fact. And by the time regulators get around to responding to your complaint, if they ever do, the risk has already been done. The employer has already extracted what they needed from you. We're not safe, neither in healthcare nor in the public, nor in other sectors of the economy, because we haven't fixed the supply chain of PPE. We were working without the protection that we need.

Charlene Obernauer: Mmm hmm. Oh, I 100 percent agree with you. And thank you for, thank you for calling and thank you for raising these issues. From our perspective, more needs to be done by New York State, more needs to be done in the way of enforcement. I completely agree that when you're filing a complaint, often times it feels like everything earlier feels like it's going into the abyss. It feels like no one is there to respond. I think immediately what we need to do is start to develop our own New York State stockpile of PPE. That, that needs to be a priority for New York State. We need to be investing millions of dollars into this because ultimately this is the new normal, right? The new normal is to have unsafe practices like reusing these masks, like not having access to personal hygiene, etc. And that should not be practiced. And so we we have been calling on New York State to do just that, to put into effect an executive order that would make all of these things enforceable, that would actually give teeth to this. Because what, what if an employer doesn't provide you with the PPE that you need? What if an employer doesn't provide you with hand hygiene requirements? Well, for most workers, they're going to say, well, you know, it is what it is. There's a limited supply. And that is not an appropriate answer. That is not enough. And I completely agree with the caller that we really need to do more in New York State to make sure that our healthcare workers are protected, and that all workers who need PPE have access to it.

Brian Lehrer: And we will have to leave it there for today. We will obviously come back to this topic in many ways as businesses reopen, workplaces of various kinds with so many different kinds of uncertainty, and rules that people either are, or are not, following and guidelines that employers either are, or, not, are not, following, to keep this very important conversation going as people try to walk that line between reopening the economy but not taking risks that they don't absolutely have to take. So my guest has been Charlene Obernauer, Executive Director at NYCOSH. That's the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. Thank you so much for coming on.

Charlene Obernauer: Thanks so much.

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