Is your workplace compliant with upcoming OSHA 300 log posting requirement?
By Reagan Branch, MPH, CIH, CSP, Owner of Pyramid Safety & Health Solutions Inc.; reagan@pyramidsoln.com
Many employers may be unaware of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and in particular their annual requirement to post OSHA 300A logs beginning February 1st until April 30th each year. Employers must record all work-related injuries that are beyond first aid and post the summary for the period listed. These recordable work-related injuries and illness includes any of the following:
Any work-related injury or illness that results in loss of consciousness, days away from work, restricted work, or transfer to another job.
Any work-related injury or illness requiring medical treatment beyond first aid.
Any work-related diagnosed case of cancer, chronic irreversible diseases, fractured or cracked bones or teeth, and punctured eardrums.
There are also special recording criteria for work-related cases involving: needlesticks and sharps injuries; medical removal; hearing loss; and tuberculosis.
Not all employers are subject to this requirement. If you have fewer than 10 workers and operate under a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code that is part of the low-risk industries then you are also partially exempted. This list of exempted industry classification codes is for industries that have statistically lower numbers of recorded injuries and illnesses and are not mandated to perform recording except if requested by the Department of Labor. Some examples of these exempted industries include shoe stores, gas stations, newspaper and other publishers, insurance and employee benefit funds and personal care service providers to name a few. A full list can be found on the OSHA’s Recordkeeping Rule.
Examples of some of the industries with NAICS codes that are required to record and post summaries includes construction, manufacturing, nursing homes, cleaning services and other high injury industries with 10 or more employees. To be clear OSHA says “If your company has ten or fewer employees—regardless of the NAICS code—you are partially exempt from routinely keeping injury and illness records.” However, all employers regardless of industry must report (not just record) to OSHA “any worker fatality within 8 hours and any amputation, loss of an eye, or hospitalization of a worker within 24 hours.” Failure to report these types of events can result in citation and penalties. Failing to record on OSHA 300 log and post the summary may also result in a recordkeeping citation if your workplace is inspected by OSHA. These records are mandated to be kept for a period of five years and failing to keep them could also result in citations and penalties. If an employer has multiple sites, the logs must be specific to each site.
This posting requirement is important because it provides information to workers, employers (and their representative) and regulatory agencies information about the types and frequency of inquiries and hazards that workers are exposed to. As a former OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officer these records were very important to me in determining what departments or type of work I should focus on when inspecting a facility. If there are high numbers of back injuries among workers of a specific title I would be interested to review the type of work and interview a sample of those workers to find out what contribute to this kind of injury occurring. By posting and making this information available, employees and their union representative may be able to determine injury trends and identify work or machinery along with their employers to eliminate them. Employers can gather important information about how a lack of safety or health controls in their workplaces is contributing to losses through increased loss workdays among workers, workers compensation claims increase, increased insurance cost, high turnover and low morale.
In this time of COVID-19, there are some industries that are impacted more than others where in their staff had high instances of infection. Nursing homes and hospital staff were on the front lines of the pandemic and logically their brave staff were impacted in greater numbers than other industries. OSHA established that covered industries with work-related exposures to COVID-19 must record it on their OSHA 300 logs (see criteria below). You may find additional information about recordkeeping requirement along with posting requirements by visiting the OSHA recordkeeping page.
COVID-19 can be a recordable illness if a worker is infected as a result of performing their work-related duties. However, employers are only responsible for recording cases of COVID-19 if all of the following are true:
1. The case is a confirmed case of COVID-19 (see CDC informationon persons under investigation and presumptive positive and laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19);
2. The case is work-related (as defined by 29 CFR 1904.5); and
3. The case involves one or more of the general recording criteria set forth in 29 CFR 1904.7 (e.g., medical treatment beyond first aid, days away from work).
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