Effective January 1, 2015, the revised injury and illness recordkeeping and reporting requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) went into effect. Employers were previously required to report all work-related fatalities and inpatient hospitalizations of three or more employees within 8 hours.
The new rules still require employers to report all fatalities to OSHA within 8 hours, but now employers will also have to report each single work-related inpatient hospitalization, as well as amputations and losses of an eye, to OSHA within 24 hours. The 8 and 24-hour periods are measured from the time the employer learns about the injury or fatality, not from when the event occurred. OSHA’s webpage describes the new rules.
In addition, the new rules require an estimated 199,000 employers that had previously been partially exempt from recordkeeping requirements to keep OSHA injury and illness records. Exemptions are based on an updated Classification System of industries. The new rule maintains the recordkeeping exemption for any employer with 10 or fewer employees regardless of industry classification.
The new list of exempt industries is found here, and now includes gasoline stations, clothing stores, newspaper publishers, colleges and universities, and full-service restaurants.
Industries newly required to keep records include automobile dealers, liquor stores, bakeries, performing arts companies, museums, historical sites, and emergency and other relief service.
