Sarah Goodman

Ask most employers what OSHA requires on ergonomics, and you will get one of two wrong answers. Some assume there is a detailed federal rulebook governing chair height, lifting limits, and keyboard angles. Others assume that because no such rulebook exists, ergonomics is purely voluntary, a wellness perk, not a legal exposure. Both are mistaken, and the gap between them is exactly where liability lives.

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), otherwise known as the strains, sprains, carpal tunnel cases, and back injuries that come from repetition, force, and awkward posture, remain one of the largest single categories of workplace injury, accounting for roughly a third of serious cases and costing employers billions each year in workers’ compensation, lost productivity, and medical expenses. Yet the federal framework governing them is defined more by what is absent than by what is written down. Understanding that absence is the whole game.

Ergonomics Program Standard

For one decade-spanning moment, federal ergonomics regulation was real. OSHA promulgated a comprehensive Ergonomics Program Standard at the end of 2000, requiring covered employers to identify and control MSD hazards. It survived a matter of weeks. In early 2001, Congress invoked the Congressional Review Act and passed a joint resolution rescinding the rule, which the President signed.

The CRA repeal did more than erase the standard. By its terms, the Act bars an agency from reissuing a rule in “substantially the same form” without fresh congressional authorization. That single procedural feature is why, a quarter-century later, there is still no federal ergonomics standard — and why one is unlikely to appear through ordinary rulemaking. OSHA did not decline to regulate ergonomics. It was statutorily disarmed from doing so the conventional way.

The General Duty Clause

What is left in OSHA’s arsenal is Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act, the General Duty Clause, which requires every employer to furnish a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.” The clause is OSHA’s catch-all: it reaches recognized, serious hazards for which no specific standard exists. Ergonomics is the textbook example, sharing that territory with heat illness, workplace violence, and combustible dust.

For a labor and employment audience, the operative point is that a General Duty Clause citation is not a free-floating accusation that a workplace felt unsafe. OSHA must establish four elements:

• A condition or activity in the workplace presented a hazard to employees
• The employer or its industry recognized that hazard
• The hazard was causing, or was likely to cause, death or serious physical harm
• A feasible and useful means existed to materially reduce the hazard

Each element is a defense opportunity, and the second and fourth are where ergonomics cases are usually won or lost. “Recognition” can be proven through the employer’s own injury logs, prior complaints, internal ergonomics assessments, or industry consensus materials and NIOSH guidance. “Feasibility” turns on whether a workable engineering or administrative control (i.e., job rotation, lift assists, workstation redesign, or pacing changes) actually existed and was reasonably available. An employer that can show it identified its risks and was implementing reasonable controls in good faith is in a fundamentally different posture than one that did nothing.

The Quieter Enforcement Levers

The General Duty Clause is the headline mechanism, but it is not the only one, and it is important not to overlook the supporting cast.

Recordkeeping obligations under 29 C.F.R. Part 1904 require accurate logging of work-related MSDs. A failure to record can be an independent citation, and an inaccurate log undercuts the credibility of every other defense an employer might raise.

The hazard alert letter deserves particular attention because of how it compounds. When OSHA observes ergonomic risk that it is not prepared to cite outright, it may issue a hazard alert letter — a "no-impact" document carrying no fine and no immediate citation history. It is tempting to file and forget. That is a trap. If the agency returns and finds the flagged hazards unaddressed, the prior letter supplies the knowledge element that can elevate a later citation to willful. There is no formal mechanism to contest the letter’s findings, so the practical response is to treat it as a litigation exhibit in waiting: conduct a documented assessment, implement corrective action, and preserve proof of both.

What Is Actually Changing in 2025–2026

Two developments make this an unusually live area rather than a settled one.

First, in July 2025, OSHA proposed narrowing its own General Duty Clause interpretation, carving out hazards that are “inherent and inseparable from the core nature of a professional activity or performance” —aimed at inherently risky pursuits like certain entertainment and athletic work. The comment period drew enough interest that OSHA extended it and scheduled a public hearing. For ergonomics specifically, the early read from the defense bar is that this changes little: the MSD hazards in warehousing, healthcare, meatpacking, and manufacturing are not “inherent and inseparable” from the core work in the way the proposal contemplates, so robust General Duty Clause enforcement in those sectors is expected to continue. Still, the proposal signals a broader judicial and administrative skepticism toward expansive use of catch-all clauses — a theme worth tracking in any 5(a)(1) defense.

Second, and more consequential, the states are filling the federal vacuum. Roughly five states now maintain ergonomics standards of some form, including California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, and Minnesota, and the recent activity is concentrated in the last two.

Minnesota's statute (Minn. Stat. § 182.677) is the one to know. Effective January 1, 2024, it requires covered employers in three high-MSD sectors (warehouse distribution centers, meatpacking and poultry processing sites, and licensed health care facilities), each above defined headcount thresholds, to maintain a written ergonomics program with risk assessments, training, and early-reporting procedures. It layers on a five-year first-aid log requirement and ties enforcement into the state's existing AWAIR safety-program framework, with safety committee obligations triggered above certain incidence rates. This is precisely the kind of prescriptive, documentation-driven mandate the repealed federal rule once contemplated,  now operating at the state level.

Washington is moving more incrementally but deliberately. Its Department of Labor & Industries regained authority to issue ergonomics rules and may promulgate one rule per year, targeting industries whose workers’ compensation MSD claim rates run at more than twice the statewide average, with effective dates from mid-2026 onward. Multi-state employers can no longer assume a single national compliance posture; the obligations now vary materially by where the work is performed.

Enforcement at the federal level, meanwhile, has not gone dormant. OSHA’s high-profile resolution with Amazon, which included committing to facility-wide ergonomic abatement including adjustable workstations, anti-fatigue flooring, and job rotation, demonstrated the agency’s willingness to pursue ergonomic hazards against even the largest employers through the General Duty Clause, and effectively set a reference point for what “feasible controls” look like in high-throughput logistics.

The Practical Takeaway

The recurring misconception is that “no standard” means “no duty.” It never did. The combination of an active General Duty Clause, recordkeeping obligations, hazard alert letters that ripen into willful-violation predicates, and a growing patchwork of state mandates produces a real and enforceable framework, just one assembled from parts rather than handed down as a single rule.

For employers, the defensive posture writes itself: identify ergonomic risks proactively, prefer engineering and administrative controls over PPE, document assessments and corrective action contemporaneously, and respond to hazard alert letters as if they were citations-in-waiting. Good-faith, documented effort is not merely good safety practice: under the four-element test, it is the difference between a defensible record and a willful citation.

The federal government may not have written the ergonomics rulebook. But it has built, piece by piece, a regime that holds employers to one all the same.