Most Obama-Era Job Injury Reporting Requirements Rescinded (1)

Large employers won’t be required to send OSHA detailed injury and illness reports that had been due by early March, the agency announced Jan. 24.

The rule change, which goes into effect Feb. 25, rescinds the Obama-era requirement for establishments with 250 or more employees to electronically submit every year information from Occupational Safety and Health Administration Form 300, an annual report of injury and illness cases, and Form 301, a detailed report on each case (RIN:1218-AD17).

Employers will continue to have to submit another document, Form 300A, which summarizes the information from the other two forms, including the percentage of workers injured and the number of cases.

In announcing the change, OSHA reminded employers that they’re still required to complete all three forms and must provide them if requested by the agency.

No One Is Happy

The policy change doesn’t please business or labor organizations and will likely be challenged in federal court.

Marc Freedman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for workplace policy in Washington, said the business group is disappointed OSHA didn’t also strike the Form 300A requirement.

The Chamber continues to be concerned that information on 300A forms about the number of employees at each work site and the number of hours worked will become publicly available, either through Freedom of Information Act requests or a more labor-friendly administration deciding to release the data, Freedman told Bloomberg Law.

“There is scant effort to put to rest the idea that sensitive information will be released to the public,” he said.

OSHA during the Trump administration has said it won’t release the information. But that stance is under challenge in a federal court case in which watchdog group Public Citizen is seeking to force the agency to provide the information employers provided in prior years.

In December, a federal judge considering the ongoing challenge by Public Citizen wrote in an opinion that release of injury and illness data probably wouldn’t violate the privacy restrictions OSHA is depending on to justify withholding the information. 

OSHA in the Dark

Labor advocates said the rule revision prevents workers and safety experts from being able to review the detailed information on the 300 and 301 forms.

“This rollback allows employers to hide their injury records and keep workers, the public, and OSHA in the dark about dangerous conditions in American workplaces,” Obama-era OSHA administrator David Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University’s School of Public Health in Washington, told Bloomberg Law.

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said in a written statement, “It is notable that despite the many important issues being neglected during this partial government shutdown, the administration found time to finalize a rule that shields employers from accountability for the health and safety of their employees.”

The committee hasn’t said if a hearing about the rule change is under consideration.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bruce Rolfsen in Washington at BRolfsen@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Phil Kushin at pkushin@bloomberglaw.com; Terence Hyland at thyland@bloomberglaw.com