OSHA Announces New Electronic Reporting and Employer Policy Requirements
On May 12, 2016, the United States Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released final regulations providing for electronic reporting of worksite injuries and illnesses by certain employers beginning in 2017. The electronic reporting is required of workplaces that had 250 or more employees at any point during the prior calendar year, as well as those that had between 20 and 249 employees and conduct business in certain “high-hazard” industries designated in the regulations.
The electronic reporting will be phased in. The electronic report for calendar year 2016 must be filed by July 1, 2017, and concerns certain information from OSHA Form 300A. The electronic report for calendar year 2017 must be filed by July 1, 2018, and concerns certain information from OSHA Forms 300A, 300, and 301. For each subsequent calendar year, the broader filing is due March 2 of the following year. The referenced OSHA forms can be found here. The regulations specify which information from the forms is and is not required to be filed electronically. It is OSHA’s intention to create a website portal to permit the electronic filing.
In the meantime, the regulations contain more immediate requirements, which initially were effective as of August 10, 2016, but have been postponed until November 1, 2016. Specifically, each employer subject to OSHA’s record keeping requirements (generally, those that had more than 10 employees at any point in the prior calendar year) must have a procedure for employees to utilize to report work-related injuries and illnesses, and the procedure must include certain language, specified in the regulations, regarding the prohibition on retaliation for making such reports. The final regulations prohibit such retaliation, and the preamble to the regulations clarifies that actions or policies of an employer that, whether or not by design, may have the effect of chilling the reporting of worksite injuries and illnesses will be deemed unlawful. As one example of a policy that is popular with many employers but now will be problematic, OSHA specifically indicates that, as a general matter, a blanket policy of drug testing an employee following a workplace injury or illness is prohibited.
