NEWS ITEM FOR NCISS MEMBERS
-- Updated OSHA Workplace Injury Reporting Rule
On September 18, 2014, the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published its final rule updating reporting requirements for workplace injuries, requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The rule, which also updates the list of employers partially exempt from OSHA record-keeping requirements, will go into effect on January 1, 2015, for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction.
Under the revised rule, employers will be required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within eight hours, and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Previously, OSHA's regulations required an employer to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees. Reporting single hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule. Employers with ten or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year are exempt from routinely keeping OSHA injury and illness records.
All employers covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, even those who are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records, are required to comply with OSHA's new severe injury and illness reporting requirements. To assist employers in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA is developing a Web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to the phone reporting options.
