Effective January 1, 2015 OSHA announces new requirements for reporting severe injuries and updates list of industries exempt from record-keeping requirements
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently announced a final rule requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The rule, which also updates the list of employers partially exempt from OSHA record-keeping requirements, will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015 for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction.
The new reporting requirements expand the list of severe injuries that employers must report. Currently, employers must notify OSHA of all work-related fatalities and work-related hospitalizations of three or more employees within eight hours of the incident. Under the revised rule, employers will be required to notify OSHA of all work-related fatalities within 8 hours, and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours.
All employers covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, even those who are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records, are required to comply with OSHA’s new severe injury and illness reporting requirements. To assist employers in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA is developing a Web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to phone reporting options.
In addition to the new reporting requirements, OSHA has also updated the list of industries that, due to relatively low occupational injury and illness rates, are exempt from the requirement to routinely keep injury and illness records. The new list is based on updated injury and illness data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new rule maintains the exemption for any employer with 10 or fewer employees, regardless of their industry classification from the requirement to routinely keep records of worker injuries and illnesses.
For more information about this announcement please visit OSHA’s website.