The deadline to submit your injuries and illnesses for 2016 electronically through the new OSHA Injury Tracking Application website is December 1. However, recent actions by OSHA suggest this rule has the potential to look differently next year.
In January, a lawsuit against the rule was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. The court stayed its ruling to allow OSHA to review the rule. As a condition of the stay, the court required OSHA to file status reports with the court. In the final status report recently issued, OSHA acknowledged they had reviewed the rule, have drafted regulatory text, summaries and explanations for proposed changes, and their economists are currently working on the economic impact analysis of the proposed changes.
Thus, the electronic recordkeeping rule is likely to be changed, but there are no indications of what will be changed or when. The two most contentious parts of the rule have been making injury/illness data for each company publicly available online and additional anti-retaliation rules which affect certain types of employee safety incentive programs and post-accident drug testing procedures. There is some thought that both of these previsions may be altered or removed from the rule.
In the meantime, if your company is required to submit electronically, the rule stands as-is and you will need to get your data uploaded by December 1. Who is required to submit electronically? Check out our previous blog describing which companies are affected and what the process for submitting electronically entails. Need help with the data upload or sorting this all out? Contact us today!