OSHA Electronic Recordkeeping Rule

White House Clears the Final Amended Electronic Recordkeeping Rule

Eric J. Conn Leave a comment

By Eric J. Conn and Daniel C. Deacon

The White House has given final sign-off on OSHA’s Amended Regulation — Improved Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses (aka the Electronic Recordkeeping or E-Recordkeeping Rule).  The Preamble and the Final Rule have been sent to the Federal Register for official publication. The rule package will appear in the Federal Register this Friday (July 21, 2023), but in the meantime, the Administration has posted a pre-publication version of the final rule package.  So we now have the final regulatory text, OSHA’s rationale for its final rulemaking decisions, and its analysis of the stakeholder comments about the proposed amended rule.  Here’s what we know.

Details About the Final Rule

The final amended E-Recordkeeping Rule will take effect on January 1, 2024.  The regulatory text and the Preamble make clear that because this final rule becomes effective before the next E-Recordkeeping submission deadline in 2024, OSHA intends for March 2, 2024 to be the first submission deadline for the new information required to be submitted under this rule.

Unfortunately, OSHA has included each of the proposed changes in the final rule, and even worse, it added in an element that goes beyond what had originally been proposed.  As a reminder, the proposed amended rule published by OSHA in March 2022 included three key revisions: Continue reading →

OSHA’S Top Regulatory Priorities… Other than COVID-19

Eric J. Conn Leave a comment

By Eric J. Conn, Chair, Conn Maciel Carey’s national OSHA Practice

In the June/July issue of Tank Storage Magazine, Eric J. Conn, Founding Partner and Chair of Conn Maciel Carey LLP’s OSHA • Workplace Safety Practice Group, looks at recent changes in OSHA’s regulatory policies in the article, “OSHA’S Top Regulatory Priorities…Other than COVID-19.”

Here is a summary of his observations.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has not slowed it rulemaking activities despite the attention COVID-19 has demanded over the past two years. In just the past six months, OSHA has:

  1. Published a notice of proposed regulation to expand its Electronic Recordkeeping Rule;
  2. Initiated an enforcement National Emphasis Program to address Heat Illness; and
  3. Launched rulemaking for an Outdoor and Indoor Heat Illness Prevention standard.

OSHA’S Rulemaking to Expand the E-Recordkeeping Rule

OSHA’s Standard To Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses (aka, the E-Recordkeeping Rule) has experienced Continue reading →

OSHA Grants Request to Extend the Comment Period for the Proposed Amended E-Recordkeeping Rule

Eric J. Conn Leave a comment

By Eric J. Conn, Chair of CMC’s National OSHA Practice

On March 30th, OSHA published a proposal to dramatically expand the requirements of its Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses Rule (aka the E-Recordkeeping Rule).  Read our full article here for more information about the history of E-Recordkeeping, the new proposed amendments to the E-Recordkeeping Rule, and the implications of the proposed changes.

In short, the proposed changes to the E-Recordkeeping Rule would:

  1. Replace the current requirement for all workplaces with 250+ employees to annually submit to OSHA’s electronic Injury Tracking Application the data from their 300A Annual Summary of work-related injuries, with a new requirement for workplaces with 100+ employees in the “high hazard industries” listed in new Appendix B to submit the full panoply of OSHA recordkeeping records – i.e., OSHA Forms 300 (the OSHA Log), 301 (detailed incident reports for each recorded injury), and the 300A Annual Summary;
  2. Require workplaces with 20+ employees in another larger list of so-called “high-hazard industries” (new Appendix A) to submit the data from their 300As; and
  3. Compel all submitting employers to include their proper company name with the electronic data submissions.

That Federal Register Notice set the deadline for stakeholders to submit comments for Tuesday, May 31 — the day after Memorial Day and one week after the deadline to submit post-hearing comments about OSHA’s proposed Permanent COVID-19 Standard for Healthcare.  Because of that crowded schedule and the importance of the proposed changes to the E-Recordkeeping Rule, last week, on behalf of Conn Maciel Carey’s Employers E-Recordkeeping Rulemaking Coalition, we prepared and filed a Letter to OSHA Requesting an Extension of the Comment Period. Continue reading →

OSHA’s Rulemaking to Expand the Electronic Recordkeeping Rule

Eric J. Conn 3 Comments

By Eric J. Conn

Who else misses the time when OSHA would issue a new regulation only once every decade or so?!?!  Alas, OSHA has been quite busy the last few months on the rulemaking front, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.  You’ve heard a lot from us about the various COVID-19 rulemaking efforts – two emergency standards and a new effort to make permanent the COVID-19 standard for healthcare.  Now, OSHA has turned its attention to a more traditional OSHA subject – injury and illness recordkeeping.

Specifically, on March 30th, OSHA published a new proposed rule to dramatically expand the requirements of its Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses Rule; i.e., the Electronic Recordkeeping Rule.

Background on OSHA’s E-Recordkeeping Requirements

OSHA first issued regulations requiring that employers record occupational injuries and illnesses in 1971.  Pursuant to 29 CFR 1904.7, employers must keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses that involve death, loss of consciousness, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, or diagnosis of a significant injury or illness by a physician or other licensed health care professional.  Additional requirements were added for Reporting of Fatality and Multiple Hospitalization Incidents, and later, in 2014, OSHA expanded the types of incidents that had to be reported to OSHA; i.e., a single in-patient hospitalization, amputations, and losses of an eye. (79 FR 56130)

In 2016 (amended in 2018), annual electronic injury recordkeeping data submissions to OSHA became mandatory both for establishments with 250 or more employees, and establishments with 20-249 employees in certain designated industries.  The current version of the E-Recordkeeping Rule has undergone some changes and revisions, and indeed, as we have chronicled in the past,  the E-Recordkeeping Rule has had a long and tortured history.  Before promulgation of the E-Recordkeeping Rule, unless OSHA opened an enforcement inspection at an employer’s workplace or the Bureau of Labor Statistics requested an employer’s participation in its annual injury data survey, employer injury and illness recordkeeping data was maintained internally by employers. In a major policy shift, in 2016, President Obama’s OSHA enacted the E-Recordkeeping Rule, requiring hundreds of thousands of workplaces to proactively submit injury and illness data to OSHA through OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application (“ITA”).  More specifically, the 2016 E-Recordkeeping Rule required: Continue reading →

Update About OSHA’s Electronic Recordkeeping Rule (Webinar Recording)

Theresa Green Leave a comment

On September 8, 2021, Eric J. Conn, Lindsay A. DiSalvo, and Daniel C. Deacon, presented a webinar regarding an Update About OSHA’s Electronic Recordkeeping Rule.

OSHA’s E-Recordkeeping Rule has been challenged and criticized by stakeholders since its inception, with expectations that OSHA under a Trump Administration would significantly narrow or even rescind it. Despite issuing an amended rule, the Trump Administration did very little to narrow its impact on employers and nothing to alleviate concerns about the collection and publication of injury data.

OSHA is also actively enforcing both the recordkeeping and anti-retaliation elements of the rule, and OSHA even promulgated a site-specific targeting program (SST-16 Plan) based on employer 300A data collected under the E-Recordkeeping Rule. Even more enforcement of the rule is expected in 2021 as the Biden Administration takes the reins, and a new site-specific targeting plan has been announced. The Biden Administration is also highly likely to amend the Rule again to restore OSHA’s original intent to collect 300 log and 301 incident report level data.

During this webinar, participants learned about: Continue reading →