Not all industries are affected, but those that are must begin complying on Jan. 1, 2015:
Workplace injury and fatality reporting requirements from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), under the U.S. Department of Labor.
OSHA’s changed not only injury and fatality reporting requirements, but also the types of industries that are exempt because of historically low injury/illness records.
The full list of North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes that are exempt can be found at OSHA’s website here.
Changes that employers must stay on top of
In just four months, employers will have to notify OSHA about:
- any work-related fatality of a company employee, contractor, vendor, guest, etc., within 8 hours
- in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees within 24 hours of hospitalization, and
- loss of an eye or an amputation (finger, hand, foot, etc.) within 24 hours.
As of right now, companies only have to report accidents where three or more people are hospitalized. The requirement for losses of an eye and amputations is new.
Companies will have the option of reporting injuries and fatalities online through an OSHA online portal (not yet completed).
One bit of good news: The exemption for employers with 10 or fewer workers remains in place.
The latest U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there were 4,405 workplace fatalities in the U.S. in 2013.
That’s down from the previous year’s total of 4,628, a 6% drop. Put another way, the 2013 fatality rate is roughly 3.2 workers per 100,000.
