Earlier this year, the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration Standards Board and Office of Administrative Law approved a "Hotel Housekeeping Musculoskeletal Injury Prevention Program" that may result in sweeping changes to hospitality employers’ written policies and training practices concerning workplace injuries. The regulations take effect July 1, 2018, and affected employers have until Oct. 1, 2018, to complete their initial “work site evaluation.”

The new regulations are intended to control the risk of musculoskeletal injuries and disorders to housekeepers working in certain establishments such as hotels, motels, resorts and bed and breakfast inns. They expressly define “musculoskeletal injury” as acute injury or cumulative trauma of a muscle, tendon, ligament, bursa, peripheral nerve, joint, bone, spinal disc or blood vessel.

Originally published in Law360 on June 14, 2018.