Beginning January 1, 2024, more employers will be required to electronically submit detailed information about their workplace injuries and illnesses to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) every year.
OSHA recently published a final rule amending its workplace injury and illness recordkeeping regulations (29 CFR Part 1904) to require electronic submission of injury and illness data that employers were previously only required to keep in their internal records.
OSHA requires covered employers to maintain records of their employees' work-related injuries and illnesses on three forms:
- Form 300A Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, which aggregates injury and illness data for an establishment over the course of a calendar year.
- Form 300 Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, which contains details about each injury or illness case such as the body part involved, the type and severity of the injury or illness, and the days away from work needed to recover.
- Form 301 Injury and Illness Incident Reports, which contain additional information about the affected employee and the circumstances that led to an injury or illness listed on the OSHA 300 Log.
Currently, employers covered by electronic submission requirements are only required to submit the summary data from Form 300A, not the more detailed information on Form 300 and Form 301.
The new rule changes that.
Under the new rule, employers in designated industries with more than 100 employees must submit Form 300 and Form 301, in addition to Form 300A, annually using OSHA's Injury Tracking Application (ITA). In addition, OSHA will require employers to include their company name when making electronic submissions. Employers will need to provide this detailed injury and illness information for all of calendar year 2023 by March 2, 2024.
The covered industries are listed in a new appendix to the regulations. The following industries are a selection of the designated industries in Appendix B to Subpart E of Part 1904:
1121 Cattle Ranching and Farming
1133 Logging
2213 Water, Sewage and Other Systems
2381 Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors
3115 Dairy Product Manufacturing
3117 Seafood Product Preparation and Packaging
3118 Bakeries and Tortilla Manufacturing
3119 Other Food Manufacturing
3261 Plastics Product Manufacturing
3312 Steel Product Manufacturing from Purchased Steel
3323 Architectural and Structural Metals Manufacturing
3325 Hardware Manufacturing
3327 Machine Shops; Turned Product; and Screw, Nut, and Bolt Manufacturing
4244 Grocery and Related Product Merchant Wholesalers
4413 Automotive Parts, Accessories, and Tire Stores
4441 Building Material and Supplies Dealers
4451 Grocery Stores
4522 Department Stores
4841 General Freight Trucking
4859 Other Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation
4921 Couriers and Express Delivery Services
4931 Warehousing and Storage
5621 Waste Collection
6221 General Medical and Surgical Hospitals
7112 Spectator Sports
7131 Amusement Parks and Arcades
7211 Traveler Accommodation
OSHA will publish much of the data it collects from Form 300 and Form 301 on its public website, after identifying and removing information that could reasonably be expected to identify individuals directly, such as individuals' names and contact information. OSHA believes publishing this data "will allow OSHA, employers, employees, researchers, safety consultants, and the general public to use the data in ways that will ultimately result in the reduction of occupational injuries and illnesses."
The rule increases the amount of detailed information available to OSHA such as the injuries and illnesses that employees are experiencing, the names of injured employees, the mechanisms of injury, etc. OSHA can use the information in many ways, including to:
- Decide which employers to inspect.
- Prepare for inspections.
- Target certain industries.
- Predetermine what to scrutinize during an inspection.
- Identify employees who have been injured or ill, as opposed to randomly asking for employees to be produced for interviews.
Consequently, the new rule increases employers' exposure to OSHA citations and penalties.
Employers can and should prepare to comply with the new rule now to mitigate their risks and exposure. Employers can do the following:
- Determine whether you are covered by the new rule.
- Review your recordkeeping procedures to ensure you are accurately completing OSHA Forms 300, 301 and 300A.
- Begin to gather and organize Forms 300, 301 and 300A for the 2023 calendar year.
- Create an Injury Tracking Application (ITA) account and a gov account if you do not already have them.
- Determine how you will submit Forms 300, 301 and 300A into ITA. You can manually enter your data, upload a CSV file to add multiple establishments at the same time, or transmit data electronically via an API (application programming interface).
- Determine who will submit the Forms into ITA. Ensure that you become familiar with ITA to facilitate the submission process.
- Prepare a schedule that ensures all Forms 300, 301 and 300A for calendar year 2023 are submitted before March 2, 2024. Submitting forms before the due date avoids potential technical issues that can arise if ITA is overwhelmed by traffic.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
