Change to OSHA Injury and Illness Reporting Gets Final Review at OMB

OSHA’s Final Rule to revise the injury and illness reporting/recordkeeping requirements for employers is under review at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The rule revises the criteria for who must report injury/illness data annually and what info some employers must submit.

Review by OMB is one of the last steps of the rulemaking process. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), a sub-office of OMB, reviews new regulations before publication to ensure that the benefits of the rule justify the economic and time burdens it imposes on people. 

In this article:

OSHA Injury and Illness Reporting (29 CFR 1904)

In general, OSHA requires most employers with 10 or more employees to keep records of workplace injuries and illnesses (see 29 CFR 1904.1(a)). In addition to recording work-related cases throughout the year, some employers must submit information about work-related injuries and illnesses to OSHA on an annual basis (electronically). 

OSHA's Final Rule for injury and illness reporting will:

• Remove the requirement for employers with 250 or more employees to submit Form 300A data annually.  

• Continue to require employers with 20 or more employees in high-risk industries to submit Form 300A annually. 

• Require more detailed reporting for employers with 100 or more employees in specific industries listed in the new (proposed) Appendix B to Part 1904. 

• Require establishments to provide their company name with electronic submissions. 

The rule also updates Part 1904 to replace “old” (2012) NAICS codes with newer ones (2017). This change has no impact on who the rule covers. Lastly, OSHA has been clear that they plan to publicize the injury and illness data reported by employers each year. After scrubbing any personally identifying info, OSHA intends to post the data to a public website. 

Forms 300A, 300, and 301

To record and report work-related injury and illness cases, employers make use of three forms provided by OSHA, Forms 300, 300A, and 301: 

• Form 300 is a daily log of work-related, recordable injuries and illnesses.  
• Form 300A is an annual summary of recordable cases, based on the 300 log.
• Form 301 is a detailed incident report created following any recordable injury or illness.  

Current OSHA injury/illness reporting rules

The current injury and illness reporting requirements shake out as follows: 

_{[see 29 CFR 1904.41(a)(1) and (a)(2)]}

"New" OSHA injury/illness reporting rules 

As proposed, OSHA's forthcoming Final Rule would revise the reporting requirements this way: 

_{[OSHA proposed rule, Improving Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, 87 FR 18555, March 30, 2022]}

Industries in the New Appendix B to Part 1904

Employers in industries listed by NAICS code in the new Appendix B to Part 1904 will be required to submit information from OSHA Forms 300A, 300, and 301.

To develop that list of industries, OSHA reviewed several years of injury and illness submission from employers, and “examined combinations of establishment size and industry hazardousness that…would provide the agency with information on roughly 750,000 cases of injuries and illnesses per year” (FR 87 18543).

As proposed in March 2022, Appendix B consists of industries that were listed on Appendix A and had a high average total case rate of injuries or illnesses, or TCR.

Some industries are listed by name in both Appendices A and B. Others are covered by a broad NAICS category in Appendix A and a more precise code in Appendix B. Appendix A lists Manufacturing (NAICS 31—33), for example, while Appendix B lists dozens of specific manufacturing sectors like dairy products (NAICS 3115), plastic and rubber products (3261 and -62), cars and car parts (3361, -62, and -63), and many others.

The full proposed industry lists for Appendix A and Appendix B appear on the final two pages of OSHA’s proposed rule, here.
 

New FAQs Added to Part 1904

On top of revising the reporting criteria and requirements, OSHA has also proposed to add new Q&A style entires to its regulations in Part 1904, to clarify the changes made by the proposed rule. All of the new FAQs are listed in the proposed rule text.

This one proposed FAQ stood out as especially helpful/clarifying: 

Does every employer have to routinely make an annual electronic submission of information from part 1904 injury and illness recordkeeping forms to OSHA?

"No, only two categories of employers must routinely submit this information. The first category is establishments that had 20 or more employees at any time during the previous calendar year, and are classified in an industry listed in appendix A to this subpart; establishments in this category must submit the required information from Form 300A to OSHA once a year.

The second category is establishments that had 100 or more employees at any time during the previous calendar year, and are classified in an industry listed in appendix B to this subpart; establishments in this category must submit the required information from Forms 300, 301, and 300A to OSHA once a year."

Proposed for addition at 29 CFR 1904.41(b)(1)

Lion is keeping an eye on this Final Rule as it undergoes review at OMB. We will alert our readers when OSHA publishes the rule.

If OSHA's final published version varies at all from what was proposed in March 2022, we will let you know about those changes and how it affects the rule's application.

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Tags: 29 CFR Part 1904, Injury and illness reports, osha, OSHA compliance