DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION JULY 1, 2018

As reported in the OSHA Law Blog , the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will soon propose changes to the electronic submission of your injury logs. In 2016 OSHA finalized a rule that required all large employers and many smaller employers in certain industries to submit their OSHA injury logs electronically. In that rule, the larger employers would have to submit 300A, 300 and 301 form information but the smaller employers in the higher risk industries would only need to submit the 300A form information. Under the rule we expect to see proposed soon, only the 300A information would be required. These changes will not come out in time to affect this year’s submittal deadline.

The rule change was recently sent to OMB which is the last step before being published in the Federal Register. It is my understanding that there may be some changes to the anti-retaliation rules as well but that hasn’t been reported on yet. You will recall that the anti-retaliation provisions that were part of the original recordkeeping rule have been as controversial, if not more so, than the submission of your injury log. These rules prohibit an employer from doing anything that could discourage the reporting of an injury or accident. This included drug testing under certain circumstances and most safety incentive or safety bonus programs.

Post accident drug testing has become routine in many places over the years. This rule in its current form makes that a bit more complicated. We will be touching on that at our state meetings this Fall I hope.

When the new rules are published, we will have all the details and get them to you asap. Remember the deadline for submission of the 2017 accident data Form 300A information is JULY 1, 2018.