Under OSHA’s recordkeeping regulation, certain covered employers are required to prepare and maintain records of serious occupational injuries and illnesses using the OSHA 300 Log. This information is key for employers, workers and OSHA in evaluating workplace safety, understanding industry hazards, and implementing worker protections to reduce or eliminate hazards.
All businesses need to be aware that OSHA announced updates to its recordkeeping rule, and revisions are required to take effect on January 1, 2015. All OSHA-covered employers are now required to comply with the new severe injury and illness reporting rule.
Specifically, the revised rule includes two key changes:
- The rule updates the list of industries exempt from the requirement to routinely keep OSHA injury and illness records. Exemptions are based on historically low occupational injury and illness rates. The previous list of exempt businesses was based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system together with data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new list of exempt industries is based on the North America Industry Classification System (NAICS) also with data from the Bureau. As before, all employers with 10 or fewer employees are exempt from the routine reporting requirements regardless of industry classification.
- The rule expands the list of severe work-related injuries that all covered employers must report to OSHA. Employers are required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within eight hours and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Previously, OSHA’s regulations required an employer to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees. Reporting single hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required.
It is anticipated that increased reporting of serious injuries under the revised rule will allow for more focused and increased enforcement activities targeting specific businesses or industries with a higher than acceptable injury or fatality record.
According to OSHA, this rulemaking has net annualized costs of $9 million, with total annualized new costs of $20.6 million to employers, total annualized cost savings of $11.5 million for employers who no longer have to meet certain recordkeeping requirements, and average annualized costs of $82 per year for the most-affected firms (those newly required to keep records every year).
How Does Your Company Fit In?
For the new list of industries exempt from OSHA recordkeeping requirements, visit https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/ppt1/RK1exempttable.html.
For the list of industries that include establishments newly required to keep records, visit https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping2014/reporting_industries.html.
To learn more about OSHA reporting requirements, contact Wayne Crowther at 484.535.1346 or Brian Gilberg at 484.213.3342
Source: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping