The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced a final rule that will require establishments with 100 or more employees in certain high-risk industries to electronically submit individual workers’ injury and illness data from their OSHA Form 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses), and OSHA Form 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report) to the agency.
The new rule, which takes effect on January 1, 2024, retains existing requirements for covered employers to electronically submit Form 300A (Annual Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) for establishments (physical locations) with 250 or more employees, as well as for establishments in designated high-risk industries with at least 20 employees. However, the new rule made some changes to the list of high-risk industries, so you should review the new list (Appendix A (revised)) to determine whether your organization has any establishments that fit its criteria.
For the new requirement for establishments with 100 or more employees to submit individual data from the OSHA Forms 300 and 301, OSHA started with the high-hazard industries in Appendix A and then zeroed in further to identify the most hazardous industries among them by looking at the total case rate (TCR) of injuries and illnesses, the Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate, and fatality rates for those industries. The resulting list is Appendix B (new), which is a subset of Appendix A.
To protect workers’ privacy, employers who submit data will exclude the employee names from OSHA Form 300 and will exclude the employee names, addresses, names of health care professionals, and names and addresses of off-site treatment facilities from OSHA Form 301. OSHA intends to publicly display establishment-specific data from these forms on its website. It hopes additional details about the accident or illness will help it better identify trends and target hazardous work sites for outreach and enforcement. The agency anticipates that employers will use the data for benchmarking and workers will use it to compare industry safety records and seek employment with the safest companies.
Tips: All covered employers must comply with the OSHA electronic reporting requirements, regardless of whether they’re in a state with its own safety and health agency (such as Arizona, California, Oregon, or Washington). You must upload your submissions through OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application (ITA). Not sure if the additional reporting applies to you? Contact your Vigilant safety professional with any questions about the new rule.
