Osho Ordinance

[Lyric Maro]

The Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance provides for the safety and health protection to employees in workplaces, both industrial and non-industrial. It is basically an enabling ordinance setting out requirements in general terms.

This ordinance covers almost all workplaces - places where employees work. In addition to factories, construction sites and catering establishments, other places, such as offices, laboratories, shopping arcades, educational institutions also come under the ambit of the law. However, there are a few exception, namely

The Commissioner for Labour is empowered to issue improvement notices and suspension notices against activity of workplace which may create an imminent hazard to the employees. Failure to comply with the notices constitutes an offence punishable by a fine of HK$400,000 and HK$1,000,000 respectively and imprisonment of up to 12 months.

The Occupational Safety and Health Regulation, made under the above ordinance, sets down some basic requirements for accident prevention, fire precaution, workplace environment control, hygiene at workplaces, first aid, as well as what employers and employees are expected to do in manual handling operations. The main provisions of the Regulation are:

Arhata Osho, aka Erik Olson (left) and his attorney, Bret Roberts, talk to supporters during a recess Dec. 4, 2014 from the Jefferson County District Court trial at which Osho was found guilty of violating City sidewalk codes. Photo by Robin Dudley

Each count could have a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail, so "The City could put him in jail for 270 or 360 days," Roberts said, for violating the ordinance with his display of signs on that one day.

City of PT prosecuting attorney Jo Vanderlee provided more than 100 exhibits in the case against Osho and brought five witnesses to the stand as she laid out the nature of Osho's violations. All of the witnesses are members of the Port Townsend Police Department.

Osho's is a familiar face downtown. On most days, he sets up a display of white boards filled with handwritten political messages at Pope Marine Park, across Water Street from City Hall, and chats with passers-by.

The whiteboards are filled with statements such as "Morons of Utah," "PT Nazi Security," "Soul Mates," "Religion Myths," "Pussy Power," "Sheeple (96 percent of U)," "Vote Against Magic Underwear," "Fat?," "Gay Marriage," "Abortions go to Heaven" and "Knuckleheaded Females."

PTPD Officer Sherry Erickson described being asked by then-City Attorney John Watts to photograph Osho's display from the third-floor window of City Hall on March 31 and issuing two criminal citations.

The fifth and last witness called by the City was Jerry Spieckerman, currently a code enforcement officer for PTPD. Spieckerman was a volunteer with PTPD in June, when Osho was given his third misdemeanor citation.

In his closing arguments, Roberts argued that no testimony was heard about signs blowing or falling down, or from any pedestrians whose course was obstructed by the signs, or complaining of harassment.

On March 3, 2014, the PT City Council passed an ordinance limiting the size of "free speech activities" in public space to 6 feet long, 4 feet wide and 5 feet high. A second ordinance required permits for free speech displays. The ordinance took effect March 17.

With over a hundred workers dying from occupational injuries in the first half of 2023 alone, it became evident for the government to enforce heftier penalties for employers found to be violating occupational safety and health standards.

The maximum penalty that an employer can face if found guilty in a lower court without a jury, of breaching their general duty under Section 6A of the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance (FIUO) and Section 6 of the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance (OSHO), is $3m (US385,000).

Meanwhile, the amended ordinance also extends the time limit for prosecution of summary offences from six months to nine months, allowing the Labour Department more time to gather evidence to press summary offence charges.

The construction, manufacturing, and waste management industries are more likely to feel the impact of the changes due to the nature of the work performed and the number of workplace accidents associated with these industries.

The Labour Department will be responsible for the enforcement of this ordinance. It is expected to adopt a three-pronged approach to OSH matters through inspection and enforcement, publicity and promotion, as well as education and training.

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The Trump administration's eviction moratorium goes into effect Friday, criminalizing rental property owners across the country from evicting tenants for the non-payment of rent. At the same time, legal controversies about similar state and local policies continue to flare up.

Last week, several landlords in Seattle, Washington filed suit against their city and state governments for imposing eviction bans, which the plaintiffs argue are an unconstitutional violation of their property rights.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) issued a comprehensive, eviction moratorium in mid-March* in response to the early outbreak of coronavirus in that state, banning landlords from filing for eviction unless a tenant is creating a significant health and safety risk, or if the owner is planning on selling or moving into the property. That moratorium was extended in July and is currently set to expire in mid-October.

This was followed by the Seattle City Council passing an ordinance that prevents evictions within six months of Durkan's moratorium expiring. The council also passed an ordinance giving tenants a set amount of time to pay back rent that they owe. Like the state moratorium, Seattle's eviction ban prevents all evictions save for cases where a tenant poses an imminent health or safety risk to other tenants.

One plaintiff, El Papel, LLC, alleges that two of its two tenants have refused to pay rent since April and that one of them has tried to get other renters in the building to engage in a rent strike. Another plaintiff, Karvell Li, has a tenant that has not paid rent consistently since June of last year, and who has refused to negotiate payment plans with Li.

A third plaintiff, Berman 2, LLC, owned by Osho Berman, has historically provided housing to lower-income and formerly homeless renters at below-market rates, according to the complaint. Berman has six tenants who are not paying rent and who have refused to negotiate any sort of payment plan.

The lawsuit makes two constitutional claims against the state and city eviction bans, says Ethan Blevins, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. The first is that these policies violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on states passing laws "impairing the obligation of contracts."

"Eviction is the primary enforcement mechanism" for rental contracts, says Blevins. "When you remove the enforcement mechanism for a violation of the contract, as is the case here, you've impaired the contract."

Preventing landlords from repossessing their property from non-paying tenants, argues Blevins, also amounts to a taking of property without just compensation in violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In comments to The Seattle Times, spokespeople for both Durkan and Inslee defended their respective eviction moratoriums as legal emergency measures to prevent the pandemic from spawning an eviction and homelessness crisis.

So far during the pandemic, the number of people paying at least part of their rent has stayed pretty steady at around 90 percent at higher-end properties, which is only slightly less than where payment rates were last year. The percentage of people paying rent at is worse at lower-end buildings.

The lack of a huge surge in non-payment weakens the legal case against eviction moratoriums, Edmund Witter, managing attorney for the Housing Justice Project at the King County Bar Association in Washington, told The Seattle Times.

Blevins counters that there's been no surge in evictions in places where moratoriums have expired. Data from Princeton University's Eviction Lab shows eviction filings are below historic averages in almost every city.

In late June, a U.S. District Court in New York upheld that state's eviction moratorium in the face of a legal challenge from landlords, ruling that the emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic justified the moratorium and that limitations on when property owners could file for eviction don't count as a taking.

The fact that Seattle's eviction moratorium expires six months after the emergency, and that both Washington and Seattle's eviction moratoriums protect tenants who haven't suffered pandemic-related financial hardship, makes them more vulnerable to lawsuits.

"It's extending beyond what's necessary to deal with the public health crisis or to deal with the economic fallout from the pandemic," Blevins says. "If a law isn't reasonably related or proportional to an emergency, then I think it's more susceptible to legal challenge."

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