By Chris Demeter, Senior Loss Control Consultant
I have been with MTM for over 13 years, and prior to that I was the Safety Director at a prototype sheet metal stamping manufacturer. Every 18-months or so, I would get a visit from MIOSHA. It was not because we had a great deal of injuries, it was because we were considered a “High-hazard industry”.
Every year, MIOSHA targets certain industries that shows a higher than normal injury rate. Their main goal is to “improved workplace safety and health for all workers, as evidenced by fewer hazards, reduced exposures, and fewer injuries, illnesses and fatalities”.
A few of MIOSHA’s main targeted industries are:
- Wood Products Manufacturing
- Primary Metal Mfg.
- Fabricated Metal Product Mfg.
- Machinery Mfg.
- Transportation Equipment Mfg.
- Warehousing and Storage
If MIOSHA enforcement pays you a visit, one of the first items they want to see is your 300-Logs for the last three-years. Hopefully you have not incurred any injuries and the Logs will be blank, but if you have experienced injuries, the 300-Logs give a snapshot of the type of injuries your company has experienced. They are looking for severity type injuries or any type of injury trends such as foreign body to the eye. This would indicate either the lack of eye protection or using the wrong type of equipment.
Historically, OSHA-300 Logs and related forms remained strictly in-house. You kept the OSHA logs in your HR or Safety Department office, posted them internally for employees to view for a couple of months, used the data to make decisions about how to reduce risk of injury and illness in your workplaces, and then stored the records in a cabinet or desk drawer for five years.
This is similar to when you have an MTM Loss Control visit and we provide you with an Injury report (Loss Run) with a detailed breakdown from date of injury, injured employee, type of injury, and cost of injury. We are also using the Loss Run as a tool to indicate and relay to you any trends or deficiencies in your safety effort.
In a May 11, 2016 press release, the Labor Department announced its latest effort to “nudge” employers to operate safer workplaces by way of OSHA’s controversial final rule for injury and illness recordkeeping electronic data submission (aka “Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses”)
The new rule dramatically revises the responsibilities and impacts of OSHA’s long-standing injury and illness recordkeeping program. Electronic Reporting
According to OSHA, the following high-risk industries is just a partial list that will be required to electronically submit their injury and illness data. Go to the link below for a complete list of required establishments that if they have 20-249 employees, are required to electronically submit their injury and illness data:
https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/NAICScodesforelectronicsubmission.pdf
| Industry | NAICS Code |
| Manufacturing | 31-33 |
| Automotive parts, accessories, and tire stores | 4413 |
| Furniture stores | 4421 |
| Specialized freight trucking | 4842 |
| Interurban and rural bus transportation | 4852 |
| Charter bus industry | 4855 |
OSHA intends to provide a secure website for the electronic submission of the information and will remove any personally identifiable information (employee name, address, treating physician, etc.) before making the data publicly available. The following chart illustrates which forms shall be electronically submitted and their respective submission deadlines.
| Submission Date | July 1, 2017 | July 1, 2018 | March 2, 2019 (every year thereafter) |
| Establishments with 250 or more employees | Form 300A | 2017 Forms 300A, 300, and 301 | Forms 300A, 300, and 301 |
| Establishments with 20 to 249 employees | Form 300A | 2017 Form 300A | Form 300A |
For states with state plans, OSHA says: “within 6-months after publication of the final OSHA rule, state-plan states must promulgate occupational injury and illness recording and reporting requirements that are substantially identical to those in the new final rule.”
OSHA says it reserves the right to specially request that employers submit this information whenever they wish.
Why do all this? OSHA says is issuing this new final rule because: “Currently, little or no information about worker injuries and illnesses at individual employers is made public or available to OSHA.”
“Since high injury rates are a sign of poor management, no employer wants to be seen publicly as operating a dangerous workplace,” OSHA head Dr. David Michaels further explained in a press release. “Our new reporting requirements will ‘nudge’ employers to prevent worker injuries and illnesses to demonstrate to investors, job seekers, customers and the public that they operate safe and well-managed facilities. Access to injury data will also help OSHA better target our compliance assistance and enforcement resources at establishments where workers are at greatest risk, and enable ‘big data’ researchers to apply their skills to making workplaces safer.”
OSHA says the rule will “create the largest publicly available data set on work injuries and illnesses” ever to exist.
Anti-Retaliation Protection
Effective November 1, 2016, all employers shall complete the following to comply with the new provisions providing anti-retaliation protection to employees:
- Inform employees of their right to report work-related injuries and illnesses free from retaliation.
- Establish a reasonable procedure for employees to report work-related injuries and illnesses that does not deter or discourage employees from reporting.
- Upon request, shall provide an employee with a copy of the establishment’s current or stored OSHA 300 Log and a copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report if the injury described in the report was sustained by the employee.
Employers were prohibited already from retaliating against employees who report work-related injuries or illness, but the amendments now allow OSHA to issue citations if they deem the employer retaliated or deterred against employees for reporting, regardless of whether the employee issued a whistleblower complaint.
I have a quote from a MIOSHA Supervisor that wishes to remain anonymous: “it is not public as of this point because it’s a draft rule only. There are a whole lot of steps that have to be done yet in the rule promulgation process, and a whole lot of people above our agency that get to look at it before it becomes final. We are required by OSHA to adopt at least as effective regulations by Nov 14, 2016, so that is our target date for adoption. The process is long, so only time will tell if we make that date or not”.
The links below contain more information about these changes or you can also review a copy of the final rule in its entirety.
- OSHA Frequently-Asked Questions can be found at this link: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/finalrule/finalrule_faq.html
- Final Rule Issued to Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses can be found at https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/finalrule/index.html
- National Law Review article can be found by clicking or typing the link below: http://www.natlawreview.com/article/osha-electronic-recordkeeping-rule-creates-significant-reporting-requirements.
In closing, many of our policyholders have over 20-employee and this new upcoming rule will require them to electronically submit their injury and illness data.
We will keep our policyholders posted though upcoming newsletters and loss control visits as MIOSHA moves forward on their rendition of the rule. As always, do not hesitate to call us if we can be of assistance.
In the meantime, we all at MTM hope you enjoy these last days of mild weather. Our heavy coat and snow shoveling days are coming soon.
