Although not providing the compelling theater of Groundhog Day on February 2, OSHA’s deadline for employers to post their annual summary of injuries and illnesses is a mid-winter day not to be forgotten. The OSHA Standard for Reporting and Recording Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, 29 C.F.R. § 1904, requires that certain employers track work related illnesses and injuries of their employees throughout the year, and post the summaries of those injuries from the previous year from February 1 to April 30.

Does the Standard Apply to My Business?

If your company had 10 or fewer employees in the entire company at all times during the last calendar year, you do not have to keep the records. Also, businesses classified as low hazard retail, service, finance, insurance or real estate industry are not required to keep the records. A complete listing of such businesses by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code are provided in Appendix A to the standard, which is reproduced on page three of this Alert.

What Must I Do During the Year?

 If the standard applies, it requires employers to keep track of work-related injuries and illnesses that occur during the year and that result in loss of consciousness, restricted work activity or job transfer, days away from work, or medical treatment beyond first aid. Ferreting out all of the requirements of the standard is beyond the scope of this GT Alert, and will be covered in a future Alert, however, a few general comments on the requirements of the standard may be helpful.

The purpose of the standard is for employers and OSHA to gather data regarding instances of harm to employees so that they may focus their efforts in providing a safe work place on areas that are problematic. It recognizes that some injuries are minor in nature and eliminates these from the tracking requirements. If an injury only involves first aid (defined in the standard) and does not result in time away from work, it is not tracked. Time away from work is defined to commence on the day after the injury, so that if there is time missed in seeking first aid treatment it would not trigger a recordable incident. Loss of consciousness, needlestick and sharps injuries involving bloodborne pathogens, and death, even from a heart attack, are always recordable incidents.¹

Employers must create an Injury and Illness Incident Report, OSHA Form 301 or its equivalent, within seven days of each recordable incident. The 301 Form contains basic information about the employee, the treatment received, what the employee was doing, what happened and what the injury was. Also within that seven day period, the employer must enter information regarding the incident on the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, OSHA Form 300. Separate logs must be kept for each business location expected to be in operation for at least one year.

What Are the Posting Requirements?

The Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, OSHA Form 300A, must be completed by all employers who keep the 300 Log even if no injuries or illnesses occurred that year. It must be posted in a conspicuous location where notices to employees are customarily posted. It must be posted no later than February 1 and remain in place until April 30.

Prior to creating the 300A Summary, the employer is required to review the OSHA 300 log to verify that the entries are complete and accurate, and must correct any deficiencies. A company executive must certify that he or she reasonably believes, based on his or her knowledge of the process by which the information was recorded, that the Summary is correct and complete. The person certifying the Summary must be the owner of the company (if it is a sole proprietorship or partnership), an officer of the company, the highest ranking official working at that location, or the supervisor of the highest working official at that location.

What Are the Records Retention Requirements?

The Injury and Illness Incident Report, OSHA Form 301, Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, OSHA Form 300 and the Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, OSHA Form 300A, must all be retained by the employer for five years.

An employee, former employee or employee representative who requests access to the employer’s 300 Logs or a 301 Report, describing the employee’s own injury, must be given a copy free of charge by the end of the next business day. An agent under a collective bargaining agreement must be provided copies of the 301 Reports, with all information other than the “tell us about the case” section removed, within seven calendar days.

¹Work related deaths, or hospitalization of three or more employees, within 30 days of an incident occurring, also trigger a requirement to contact OSHA within eight hours of the employer learning of the death or hospitalizations. See, 29 CFR § 1904.39.

29 CFR § 1904 APPENDIX A

Non-Mandatory Appendix A to Subpart B — Partially Exempt Industries

Employers are not required to keep OSHA injury and illness records for any establishment classified in the following Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, unless they are asked in writing to do so by OSHA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), or a state agency operating under the authority of OSHA or the BLS. All employers, including those partially exempted by reason of company size or industry classification, must report to OSHA any workplace incident that results in a fatality or the hospitalization of three or more employees (see § 1904.39).