I. Introduction

For the past several weeks we have all been facing unprecedented challenges both professionally and personally. Many of us are working from home, and some of us are also caring for young children and/or elderly parents. We are facing shortages of food and household goods, and dealing with the added stress of uncertainty as to when the curve will start to flatten and life will begin returning to normal.

Through all of this, the OCWR has remained committed to promoting and enforcing compliance with the statutes applied to the legislative branch through the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA). Generally speaking, pandemics do not give rise to new legal obligations or alter existing ones under the various statutes, except to the extent that Congress specifically passes legislation to do so. However, employees’ existing rights – and employing offices’ existing obligations – remain intact during times of pandemics or other health crises, and it is important to consider how such circumstances may implicate each of the CAA-incorporated laws.

Some of those implications are significant and obvious, with the three most relevant statutes being the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHAct), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) as amended by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). Pandemics might have less of an impact on other laws under the CAA, but each of them nonetheless warrants discussion, to ensure that the requirements of the laws are still being followed even in such extraordinary times.

II. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHAct)

There are no OSHA standards that cover pandemics specifically. However, OSHA’s standards governing personal protective equipment (PPE), found at 29 C.F.R. Part 1910, Subpart I, could apply, along with the General Duty Clause, section 5(a)(1) of the OSHAct of 1970, 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1). These apply to the legislative branch through section 215 of the CAA, 2 U.S.C. § 1341.