SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tomorrow’s Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board meeting in Oakland will point the direction of proposed new rules under California Code of Regulations Title 8 § 5193.1.
The draft regulations amending the existing § 5193, as written, mandate condoms and suggest that adult performers might also be required to wear goggles to avoid ocular infections and dental dams for oral sex.
The OSH Standards Board, which sets measures within the Cal/OSHA program, will decide whether or not to issue a safety order over the proposed new rules.
OSH Standards Board spokeswoman Sarah Money told XBIZ that “there will indeed be a vote on [§ 5193.1] tomorrow.”
“The vote will be in public, and it will be during the second part of the meeting, which is the business meeting,” she said. "There will be five board members [of the seven appointed by the governor] present at tomorrow’s meeting, and it needs four votes to pass."
The Oakland meeting, which will be Periscoped by @XBIZ, begins at 10 a.m. with a call to order and introductions, followed by a section open for public comment.
The second part of the meeting will first look at a proposed safety order relative to “fall protection for work around skylights” and then the § 5193.1 proposal.
Adult film performers and producers fear that mandatory condom regulations will lead filmmakers to abandon the testing system altogether, or encourage other productions to go underground, without testing or condoms.
Eric Paul Leue, executive director of adult entertainment trade group Free Speech Coalition, for weeks has been rallying adult entertainment industry stakeholders to show up to offer their comments at the Oakland meeting.
“These restrictions aren’t about performer or public health,” Leue recently told XBIZ. The § 5193.1 proposal is “anti-science, anti-sex and anti-free expression.”
