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U.S. Department of Labor | May 11, 2016
New federal requirements take effect August
10, 2016
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational
Safety and Health Administration today issued a final rule to modernize injury data collection to
better inform workers, employers, the public and OSHA about workplace hazards. With
this new rule, OSHA is applying the insights of behavioral economics to improve
workplace safety and prevent injuries and illnesses.
OSHA requires many
employers to keep a record of injuries and illnesses to help these employers and their employees
identify hazards, fix problems and prevent additional injuries and illnesses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports more
than three million workers suffer a workplace injury or illness every year. Currently,
little or no information about worker injuries and illnesses at individual
employers is made public or available to OSHA. Under the new rule, employers in high-hazard industries will send OSHA injury
and illness data that the employers are already required to collect,
for posting on the agency’s website.
Just as public
disclosure of their kitchens’ sanitary conditions encourages restaurant owners
to improve food safety, OSHA expects that public disclosure of work injury data
will encourage employers to increase their efforts to prevent work-related
injuries and illnesses.
“Since high injury
rates are a sign of poor management, no employer wants to be seen publicly as operating
a dangerous workplace,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr.
David Michaels. “Our new
reporting requirements will ‘nudge’ employers to prevent worker injuries and
illnesses to demonstrate to investors, job seekers, customers and the public that
they operate safe and well-managed facilities. Access to injury data will also help
OSHA better target our compliance assistance and enforcement resources at
establishments where workers are at greatest risk, and enable ‘big data’
researchers to apply their skills to making workplaces safer.”
The availability of
these data will enable prospective employees to identify workplaces where their
risk of injury is lowest; as a result, employers competing to hire the best
workers will make injury prevention a higher priority. Access to these data
will also enable employers to benchmark their safety and health performance
against industry leaders, to improve their own safety programs.
To ensure that the
injury data on OSHA logs are accurate and complete, the final rule also
promotes an employee’s right to report injuries and illnesses without fear of
retaliation, and clarifies that an employer must have a reasonable procedure
for reporting work-related injuries that does not discourage employees from
reporting. This aspect of the rule targets employer programs and policies that,
while nominally promoting safety, have the effect of discouraging workers from
reporting injuries and, in turn leading to incomplete or inaccurate records of
workplace hazards.
Using data collected
under the new rule, OSHA will create the largest publicly available data set on
work injuries and illnesses, enabling researchers to better study injury
causation, identify new workplace safety hazards before they become widespread
and evaluate the effectiveness of injury and illness prevention activities.
OSHA will remove all personally identifiable information associated with the
data before it is publicly accessible.
Under the new rule,
all establishments with 250 or more employees in industries covered by
the recordkeeping regulation must electronically submit to OSHA injury and
illness information from OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301. Establishments with
20-249 employees in certain industries
must electronically submit information from OSHA Form 300A only.
The new requirements
take effect Aug. 10, 2016, with phased in data submissions beginning in 2017. These
requirements do not add to or change an employer’s obligation to complete and
retain injury and illness records under the Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries
and Illnesses regulation.
The final rule is available in the Federal Register at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-10443.pdf
Under the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for
providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role
is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by
setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and
assistance. For more information, visit www.osha.gov.
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Media Contacts:
Mandy McClure, 202-693-4672, mcclure.amanda.c@dol.gov
Release Number: 16-970-NAT
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