Checking a Box May Cause Muscle Strain Due to OSHA's Proposed New Rule on Recordkeeping

OSHA is proposing to revise its Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Recordkeeping regulation to include a column on the OSHA Form 300 Injury and Illness Log (OSHA 300 Log).  This revision would require employers to check a column if a case they already are required to record is a work related musculoskeletal disorder (MSD). The proposed rule would also require employers to put the totals from the MSD column on the OSHA Form 300A Annual Summary at the end of the year.   

OSHA held a teleconference in April 2011 to gather information from representatives of small businesses about their experience recording work related MSDs and how they believe they would be impacted by OSHA’s proposed rule.  The proposed rule would not change existing requirements about when and under what circumstances employers must record any work related injury or illness. The new rule would only apply to cover MSDs that employers are already required to record under the current OSHA Recordkeeping rule. One small business participant of the teleconference believes that the proposed rule will increase the need for a more thorough investigation to correctly classify work related MSDs.  OSHA is still taking comments on the topic until June 16^th 2011.

SafetySkills™ offers a training course that focuses on OSHA’s current standards of reporting and recordkeeping. This course is available at http://www.safetyskills.com/occupational-health-and-safety-series/osha-reporting-and-recordkeeping. This course will identify OSHA’s general requirement for injury/illness, identify OSHA’s required reporting forms and identify the types of incidents the OSHA requires to be reported. To learn more about this course and others, please visit us at www.safetyskills.com