OSHA announced a National Emphasis Program focusing on record keeping.
The National Emphasis Program allows OSHA to focus energies on investigating specific concerns, such as Process Safety Management, trenching, and now record keeping.
Inspections, focusing on high injury and illness rate industries, will include reviewing records, such as the OSHA 300 logs (log of injury and illnesses in the workplace), employee interviews and limited inspection of the physical facility.
OSHA recognizes that recordkeeping has been de-emphasized and, with input from the General Accounting Office, OSHA now wants to make sure injury information is accurate.
Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab stated that “Accurate and honest recordkeeping is vitally important to workers’ health and safety. This information is not only used by OSHA to determine which workplaces to inspect, but it is an important tool employers and workers can use to identify health and safety problems in their workplaces.”
The OSHA 300 log should be a current, accurate log of injuries and illnesses that require more than first aid. Entries should be made within seven days of an injury being reported. The summary must be signed by an executive or office of the corporation at the end of the year. The summary must include the average number of employees and hours worked in the past year.
For more information on OSHA’s National Emphasis Programs see this page from OSHA.
For more information on OSHA recordkeeping, including the forms and instructions, go to go here.
If you would like assistance with OSHA recordkeeping, or any other safety issue, please contact us at 651-481-9787.