New OSHA severe injury reporting requirement effective Jan. 1
On Sept. 11, 2014, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a final rule requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or a single employee suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The rule will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction.
Under this revised rule, employers will be required to 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, OSHA’s regulations required an employer to report only work-related deaths and/or incidents requiring hospitalizations of three or more employees. Reporting single cases of hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule.
All employers covered by OSHA, and even those who are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records (small farms with 10 or less employees and/or no temporary labor camp), are required to comply with OSHA’s new severe injury and illness reporting requirements.
The Appropriations Act exempts small farming operations from the enforcement of all rules, regulations, standards or orders under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. A farming operation is exempt from all OSHA enforcement and inspection activities if it:
• Employs 10 or fewer employees currently and at all times during the last 12 months (One part-time employee equals one full-time employee, immediate family members are not considered to be employees); and
• Has not had an active temporary labor camp during the preceding 12 months.
• To be considered a temporary labor camp, housing maintained by a farm must be provided: 1. As a required condition of employment, and; 2. for a discrete, temporary period of time (i.e. for seasonal or temporary employment).
• If a small farm does not meet both of these requirements, they would not be considered to have a temporary labor camp and would not be subject to any OSHA inspection or enforcement activities.