WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking earlier this summer to update and revise two aspects of the agency’s record-keeping and reporting requirements for work-related injuries and illnesses.
The new proposed reporting requirements would require all employers to report to OSHA any work-related fatalities and all in-patient hospitalizations within eight hours, and it would create a new requirement to report all work-related amputations within 24 hours. Current regulations only require reporting of all work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees within eight hours of the incident or check in.
The NPRM was published on June 22, andc comments must be submitted by Sept. 20, 2011.
OSHA is also proposing to update Appendix A of the injury and illness record-keeping rule that lists “low-hazard” industries that are partially exempt from the requirements to maintain work-related injury or illness logs. These industries received partial exemption because their average Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate is at or below 75 percent of the national average DART rate, which represents the total non-fatal injuries and illnesses resulting in days away from work, restricted work activity, and/or job transfer per 100 full-time employees for a given period of time, usually one year.
The current list of industries is based on the Standard Industrial Classification system. The North American Industry Classification System was introduced in 1997 to replace the SIC system for classifying establishments by industry. When OSHA issued the record-keeping rule in 2001, the agency used the old SIC code system because injury and illness data were not yet available based on the NAICS. OSHA is also updating Appendix A in response to a 2009 Government Accountability Office report recommending that the agency update the coverage of the relevant record-keeping requirements from the old SIC system to the newer NAICS.
Most of school districts are exempt from OSHA regulations, but 33 states have similar rules, said Jeff Cassell, president of The School Bus Safety Company, which has released a new training module on OSHA compliance
