In an ongoing effort to provide the highest level of protection to workers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a new rule to track workplace injuries and illnesses. The new rule goes into effect on January 1, 2017, and while the information reported will not change, employers will be required submit data electronically.
OSHA decided to take this additional step for a number of reasons, including encouraging employers to improve safety protocols by making injury and illness statistics publically available and improving data accuracy by boosting anti-retaliation protections.
A Look at the New OSHA Rule
Starting Jan. 1, OSHA will begin phasing in this new rule impacting select employers. Under the terms of this new policy, the same information these companies are already required to record on their onsite OSHA Injury and Illness forms will now be submitted electronically. In addition to analyzing the data to more effectively use enforcement and compliance assistance resources, OSHA will also share some of this information on its website.
Organizations with at least 250 employees in industries requiring the recordkeeping regulation must provide data from their 2016 Form 300A by July 1, 2017. Companies with 20 to 249 employees in select high-risk industries are also required to submit their 2016 Form 300A by the same deadline. Information from 2017 will be due July 1, 2018 and by 2019, all data submissions will have a March 2 deadline. Employers with less than 20 workers at all times throughout the year are not required to submit this information to OSHA.
Enhanced Anti-Retaliation Protections
In an effort to encourage employees to report injuries and illnesses caused by worksite conditions to OSHA, the final rule comes with a heightened set of anti-retaliation protections, effective August, 10, 2016. The new provision highlights a number of key facts, including employers must notify workers of their rights to report any work-related injuries or illnesses without the threat of retaliation, further emphasizes the existing requirement that a company’s reporting procedure mustn’t dissuade employees from speaking out, and incorporates the current statutory ban on retaliating against workers for reporting such incidents.
For more information on this new provision, visit the OSHA website.
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