OSHA recently announced they were delaying the enforcement of their Anti-Retaliation rule until December 1, 2016. This delay comes at the request of a judge hearing a suit against OSHA’s new rule by several groups in the Eastern District of Texas. The rule originally had an effective date of August 1, but was delayed until November 1so that OSHA could develop additional guidance on the new rule.

While not an order, the court asked that the enforcement of the new rule be delayed until it could hear arguments that could ultimately end up in an injunction against the rule until a trial. This is all very up in the air. Personally I expect the judge will ultimately allow the rule to go into effect. For now, you should have very clear and simple rules and procedures for employees to report injuries and be very careful about taking ANY disciplinary action against an employee that reports an injury