OSHA Reporting Due March 2nd

If the date March 2nd isn’t highlighted on your calendar, maybe it should be! That’s the day that electronic submissions of your 300a forms are due to be filed with OSHA for the 2019 log year. Hopefully you aren’t still doing them by hand and dealing with the redundancy of OSHA forms and WC claim reporting… If you are, ask us about an exclusive tool that is newly available to RogersGray clients–more on that later in this post. 

Although the new rules have been out for a couple years (regulations originally passed on May 12th of 2016), they are now becoming more seriously enforced. Establishments with 250 or more employees at any time during the calendar year as well as establishments with 20 or more employees from certain high-risk classes are now required to file their 300a forms directly with OSHA. (Click here for the complete list off “high risk” industries by NAICS code or see the table at the bottom of this page.)  Employees could be full time, part time, temporary, or seasonal.

When submitting these forms, it is important to distinguish between employers and establishments. For some it is easy: 1 location = 1 log. For others, like a restaurant with multiple locations, separate logs will have to be submitted for each location where the number of employees meets the requirement criteria. Similarly, a multi-state contractor with offices in different places will have to submit their own logs to OSHA for each location where their employee count meets or exceeds the specified number. It is also important to note that the new electronic submission requirements do not change which companies are required to keep the logs in general, but rather simply specifies which companies must submit them. Regulations remain that any employer with 10 or more employees must keep logs, and any establishment (or location) with 20 or more assigned employees is required to keep their own logs and submit them if they are in one of the identified high-risk classes.

WHY WOULD OSHA REQUIRE THIS INFORMATION?

Up until the implementation of this new regulation, OSHA was only obtaining data from companies with reported issues or those that they chose to drop in on for inspections. Through that practice, they were receiving an incomplete data set that did not provide an accurate depiction of industry trends. By establishing these new requirements, they will be able to obtain a more complete picture of the industry and be able to better identify problem areas and build subsequent regulations and advisement surrounding these issues. By collecting the 300a form (the summary page), they will receive a high-level overview of many more companies. The intention is to use this data to create three groups for inspections:

1. Those with an elevated DART rate (see below)
2. Those that failed to submit forms but should have, and
3. Those with normal injury levels.

Because of this classification, the first two groups should expect more scrutiny and increased odds of a comprehensive inspection.

NEED HELP DETERMINING IF AN INCIDENT NEEDS TO BE RECORDED?

The regulations state that an incident must be recorded if it involves death, days away from work, medical treatment (above and beyond first aid), or restricted work or transfer.  In this case, the definition of medical treatment does not include a doctor’s visit solely for observation or counseling, diagnostic procedures, or certain first aid cases. 

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HOW DO I KEEP THESE FILES?

RogersGray offers an exclusive online portal for clients as well as members of the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. of Massachusetts, that gives users the opportunity to fill in necessary information once and have OSHA forms automatically populated, reducing the redundancy of the filing process. The portal can also help with Workers Compensation claims, the First Report of Injury for your state, determining whether an incident is recordable, and filing with OSHA at the end of the year.

Want to learn more about this portal?  Contact Greg Deems at Greg.Deems@RogersGray.com or 508-209-6068.