OSHA Seeks Public Disclosure of Injury/Illness Data

POSTED BY AGC OF AMERICA ON APRIL 07, 2022  ·  SHARE THIS POST

The agency proposes requiring employers with 100 or more employees to publicly disclose all OSHA Forms 301 (the detailed injury and illness incident reports) accrued on an annual basis, among other things.

OSHA issued a proposed rule on March 30 to expand the scope, and revise the provisions, of its “Improved Tracking of Workplace Injury and Illness” regulation. The proposed rule would require employers in the construction industry with 100 or more employees to electronically submit their OSHA Form 300 (log of work-related injuries and illnesses), OSHA Form 300A (summary of work-related injuries and illnesses), and OSHA Form 301 (injury and illness incident report) on an annual basis. For employers in the construction industry with 20 – 100 employees, the agency proposes the annual submission of their OSHA Form 300A (summary of work-related injuries and illnesses). The agency would then remove, to the best of their ability, all personally identifiable information from the detailed logs (OSHA Forms 300 and 301) and post to their website for public review and inspection. 

This represents OSHA’s second attempt at finalizing such a rule and significantly expands the scope regarding the employee threshold for submitting the more detailed information. Under the previous rule finalized in 2016, the employee threshold for submitting the OSHA Forms 300 and 301 was set at 250 employees, while employers with 20 – 249 employees were required to submit only the OSHA Form 300A. In 2019, under the Trump administration, OSHA issued a final rule that removed the requirement for establishments with 250 or more employees to electronically submit information from their OSHA Forms 300 and 301. As a result of that amendment, all employers with 20 or more employees were only required to submit their OSHA Form 300A.

AGC has significant concerns with OSHA reverting to the requirements of the 2016 rule. Publishing the data without any meaningful context regarding an employer’s safety and health record, or the efforts an employer takes to promote a safe and healthful work environment, does not accurately depict the effectiveness of an employer’s safety and health program. Essentially, OSHA is stating that the only measurement of an effective safety and health program is the number of injury and illnesses recorded. AGC will again raise these concerns, and others, with the agency through written comments, just as we did in 2016.

For more information, please contact Kevin Cannon at kevin.cannon@agc.org or Nazia Shah at nazia.shah@agc.org.