A powerful labor union is warning of a fox in the henhouse after Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration hired a law firm with a history of working to weaken workplace safety rules and representing employers to conduct a safety review for the Department of Public Works.

The city hired the Washington-based Conn Maciel Carey firm last week to provide recommendations for improving safety policies, practices and procedures at DPW after a sanitation worker died earlier in August from heatstroke. The worker, Ronald Silver II, complained of feeling unwell on a day the city’s health department issued a “code red extreme heat alert” and the heat index reached 105 degrees.

At the same time Conn Maciel Carey is investigating and reviewing heat safety procedures in Baltimore, the firm is also leading an organized, multi-industry trade group seeking to weaken heat safety regulations being proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Attorney Eric Conn, in letters to OSHA on behalf of the group his firm brought together, has sought to soften a proposed rule around heat safety, arguing broadly the proposed standards were overly regulatory and would require too much work for employers. Among the proposed requirements are providing consistent supplies of drinking water, break areas, shade or air conditioning and paid rest breaks during periods of high heat.

“Employers need to focus our efforts on what really matters — keeping their employees healthy and safe, not unnecessary, needless paperwork,” wrote Conn, a founding partner at the firm.

Union leadership denounced the firm as “antiunion and antihealth and safety,” and said Scott’s decision to hire Conn Maciel Carey is not good for the city and for workers.

“It’s like the fox guarding the henhouse,” said Stuart Katzenberg, director of growth and collective bargaining for AFSCME Council 3. “The city should work with real health and safety experts who actually have the health and safety of our members and workers in mind.”

The firm’s work around OSHA’s proposed heat safety regulations is not the first time it’s sided with employers and industry.

For example, the firm says it represented a contractor OSHA was investigating after fatal accidents on job sites at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and the Pentagon. Their representation led to OSHA issuing zero citations.

On another occasion, the firm says it was able to convince a federal prosecutor’s office not to bring criminal charges after a workplace accident at a “major grain and agronomy cooperative.”

Former OSHA officials are left scratching their heads over Scott’s decision. Debbie Berkowitz, chief of staff at OSHA from 2009 to 2014, said the city seemed more interested in protecting itself than workers.

“If this city was really interested in reviewing their safety policies, they should bring in a true safety professional, not a law firm focused on fighting back against OSHA protections and hoping to weaken safety rules,” Berkowitz said.

A National Council for Occupational Safety and Health adviser to OSHA, Darryl Alexander, said he was amazed by the city’s decision to bring in a firm with a “dubious history.”

Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor at OSHA from 2009 to 2017, said he was surprised the city hired “a corporate law firm to do the investigation rather than some kind of safety and health specialist who specialize in doing workplace assessments.”

“I don’t know if it’s technically a conflict of interest,” Barab said. “But it certainly doesn’t seem like the best choice or the most understandable choice of consultant for the city to choose given, again, their background in opposing and weakening OSHA standards.”

Conn Maciel Carey was hired “because they have niche technical expertise in heat illness and injury prevention and experience advising employers — like the City of Baltimore — on OSHA standards and industry best practices on this emerging policy issue,” Scott’s office said in an emailed statement.

The city said the firm’s findings and recommendations would be publicly shared “and discussed by all stakeholders before any policy determinations are made.”

Conn Maciel Carey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DPW’s critics have referenced a “toxic culture” at the department in the wake of Silver’s death — his family has said his death was “completely preventable” and called for a “swift” investigation with public hearings. The city agency has been the target of two withering inspector general reports that found a lack of adequate facilities for workers including a lack of air conditioning and locked-up toilet paper employees had to request access to.

Thiru Vignarajah, an attorney representing Silver’s family, sent a letter Wednesday morning asking the Baltimore Office of the Inspector General to “formally investigate” the events that led to Silver’s death.

City Council will hold their first oversight hearing into the issues at DPW on Thursday evening.

Heat is the deadliest weather phenomenon in the United States. As of Aug. 14, heat-related illness has killed 19 Marylanders, the most of any year since 2020, according to the latest survey made available by the Maryland Department of Health. More than 1,000 Marylanders have sought emergency care due to heat-related illness this year, too.

Human-caused climate change is expected to make Maryland increasingly hotter and give Baltimore a climate comparable to the Deep South.

Reporters Adam Willis and Matti Gellman contributed to this article.