Only 30 Days Remain to Electronically Submit OSHA Injury Data

As you have been advised over the course of the year,OSHA’s Final Rule to “Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses” (aka the E-Recordkeeping Rule) requires employers of certain sizes that fall into certain categories to proactively submit electronic injury and illnesses data to OSHA through its new web portal.  The new rule dramatically changes the responsibilities and impacts of OSHA’s long-standing injury and illness recordkeeping program.

WHO?

• All establishments (single location) with 250 or more employees (in industries not exempt from keeping injury logs) that are located in a state that is covered by federal OSHA jurisdiction must submit to OSHA annually.
• Establishments with 20-249 employees in certain certain so-called “high hazard industries”, that are located in a state that is covered by federal OSHA jurisdiction, must submit to OSHA annually.

WHAT?

• All establishments with 250 or more employees (in industries not exempt from keeping injury logs) must submit to OSHA annually their injury and illness data from their OSHA 300 Logs, 301 Incident Reports, and 300A Annual Summaries. NOTE, however,  in the first year of this rule the data submission for 2016 injury data made in 2017, employers with 250 or more employees are only required to submit 300A Annual Summary data. 
• Establishments with 20-249 employees in certain so-called “high hazard industries must submit information from their 300A Annual Summaries only.

WHERE?

• All of the submissions to OSHA must be made electronically, via their new web portal:   “Injury Tracking Application.”

WHEN? 

• Deadline to Submit Data - DECEMBER 1, 2017

WHY? 

• Historically, unless OSHA opened an enforcement inspection at an employer’s workplace or the Bureau of Labor Statistics requested an employer to participate in its annual injury data survey, employers’ OSHA 300 Logs and related forms remained strictly in-house. Employers kept the data and their OSHA logs in their HR or Safety Department office, posted them internally for employees to view for a couple of months, used the data themselves to make decisions about how to reduce risk of injury and illness in their workplaces, and then stored the records in a cabinet or desk drawer for five years.
• Now, OSHA’s new rule requires hundreds of thousands of employers to proactively submit these historically private records to OSHA, which in turn may publish the data online for all the world to see.

BUT…What about E-Recordkeeping in State Plan States?

The data submission requirements under this rule are not corporate-wide. Rather, they are tied to individual “establishments,” which is defined as: “a single physical location where business is conducted or where services or industrial operations are performed.” The new data submission rule requires a location-by-location determination about whether and what to report, based on the number of employees at each particular location, whether that number meets one of the two threshold levels for reporting (i.e., 20 – 249 or 250+), and/or are a covered high-hazard industry as stated above, AND whether the state where the establishment is located has implemented the E-Recordkeeping Rule yet.

IF the establishment is located in a state that operates its own federal OSHA-approved State OSHA Program, employers may not have a data submission requirement yet.  The new rule requires all state-plan states to adopt the e-recordkeeping requirements, but fed OSHA has granted some states leeway.

To date, most state plans have finalized OSHA’s E-Recordkeeping Rule, but several others have not, and some have not even initiated the legislative or rulemaking process yet. For those states that do not adopt and finalize the e-recordkeeping requirements by December 1st, employers will not be required to submit data in those states.   See the table below:

Now What??

• Determine if any or all of your locations are required to electronically report your 2016 OSHA data and retrieve your 2016 300A Summary Form from your files
• Go to OSHA’s ITA website https://www.osha.gov/injuryreporting/ita/ and create an account for the company
• Manually enter the data, for each location, from your 2016 300A Summary Form(s)

OR

• Download a CSV file from MyWaveOSHA and electronically submit all locations at the same time. Check your CSV file before uploading the batch file to OSHA and delete any locations in states that have not adopted the new rule.  (CA, MD, MN, SC, UT and WY)