By: Daivy P. Dambreville, Esq.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a final rule on May 11, 2016, requiring employers in high-hazard industries to submit injury and illness data to OSHA for the purpose of posting on its publicly accessible website.
By way of background, OSHA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in November 2013, to add electronic recordkeeping requirements that would require some employers to electronically submit injury and illness data to OSHA on a quarterly and/or annual basis. The proposed rule sought to establish a public searchable website where the collected data would be available to the public. OSHA later published a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking in August 2014, which would prevent employers from taking adverse retaliatory employment actions against employees that had reported an injury and/or illness. The final rule is substantially similar to OSHA’s proposals.
Depending on the industry and employers’ size, the final rule requires electronic submission of injury and illness data. Specifically, employers with 250 or more employees (inclusive of seasonal, temporary and part-time staff), employers with greater than 20 but fewer than 250 employees in certain identified industries, and employers that receive notification from OSHA are required to submit the appropriate forms (i.e. 300, 300A and/or 301). OSHA will subsequently post the information obtained on its public website.
The final rule will take effect on August 10, 2016, at which time employers are required to inform employees they have a right to report a work-related injury. In addition, employers will be prohibited from retaliating against employees for reporting an occupational injury. Employers will be required to electronically submit Part 1904 of the recordkeeping forms by July 1, 2017.
For more information on how these changes to the Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements might affect your business, contact any member of the Burns White Occupational Safety and Health team.