Data Submission

By Eric J. Conn and Dan C. Deacon

In the final year of the Obama Administration, OSHA published a controversial amendment to its Injury and Illness Recordkeeping Rule known as the “Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses” Rule. As published last year, the new Final Rule significantly changed employers’ obligations under OSHA’s recordkeeping scheme. Among other hotly contested provisions, the new rule would require employers, beginning July 1, 2017, to proactively submit their employee injury and illness recordkeeping data to OSHA, so that OSHA could publish the data for all the world to see.

In a dramatic, but not unexpected, move last week, OSHA suspended this controversial data submission requirement with no word on when – or whether – a new deadline would be set for the data submission.

Telltale signs that the new Administration was rethinking the data collection requirement, and especially the plan to publish data, were clear well before last week. OSHA stated at the time the rule was published in May 2016 that it would develop a secure portal into which employers would submit the data, and that the portal would be live by February 2017, well in advance of the July 1^st data submission deadline. We understand the development of the database was completed, and learned that OSHA beta-tested the portal with the help of a few major national employers and employer organizations.

Nevertheless, Winter and Spring came and went with no public sign of the secure data portal, or update from OSHA about how precisely the database would function or when it would go live. Since we are so close to the July 1^st submission deadline and still no database with which employers could begin to get familiar, it was not surprising that on May 17^th, OSHA updated its website to officially announce a reprieve from the looming July 1^st deadline, stating:

OSHA is not accepting electronic submissions of injury and illness logs at this time, and intends to propose extending the July 1, 2017 date by which certain employers are required to submit the information from their completed 2016 Form 300A electronically. Updates will be posted to this webpage when they are available.