The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has implemented a revised rule for reporting death or injury in the workplace, which took effect Jan. 1, 2015.
Under the new rule, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is requiring employers at workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The final rule was announced in response to preliminary results from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2013 National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, according to a press release.
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4,405 workers were killed on the job in 2013. We can and must do more to keep America’s workers safe and healthy,” Thomas E. Perez, U.S. Secretary of Labor, said in the release. “Workplace injuries and fatalities are absolutely preventable, and these new requirements will help OSHA focus its resources and hold employers accountable for preventing them.”
Per the revision, employers must notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within 8 hours and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Previously regulations required employers to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees, according to the release.
OSHA is developing a web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to the administration’s phone-reporting options.
Reference: www.osha.gov.
