It’s that time of year for employers who are required by Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s recordkeeping standards to file Form 300A summarizing injuries and illnesses.
The form is required of organizations with 20 to 249 employees in several types of industries, including nursing care facilities, community care facilities for the elderly and other residential care facilities, according to OSHA.
The form is due electronically to OSHA by Feb. 1 each year. A copy of this year’s form must be posted in the workplace between Feb. 1 and April 30.
“Even if an employer that is obligated to maintain records of injuries and illnesses has no injuries or illnesses to record, the OSHA Form 300A must be completed and posted,” according to Ogletree Deakins attorneys John D. Surma and Brandon E. Strey.
“Employers must post a copy of the annual summary in each establishment in a conspicuous place or places where notices to employees are customarily posted and ensure that the posted annual summary is not altered, defaced, or covered by other material,” the labor law experts wrote. “If the annual summary is altered, defaced, or damaged, employers are required to either post a new summary or ensure the existing summary is legible.”
The highest-ranking company official at the location to which the OSHA Form 300A applies must certify the completed form. “Simply having someone ‘in safety’ certify the OSHA Form 300A is not compliant with the standard,” Surma and Strey wrote.
Employers should also be aware that penalties for job-related injuries and illnesses have increased this year. The new OSHA civil penalty amounts became effective Jan. 17 based on cost-of-living adjustments for 2023. OSHA’s maximum penalties for “serious and other-than-serious violations” will increase from $14,502 to $15,625 per violation. The maximum penalty for “willful or repeated violations” increased from $145,027 to $156,259 per violation.
A proposed recordkeeping regulation, announced in April, is aimed at better tracking workplace injuries and illnesses. Although employers have an obligation to report injuries and illnesses under the existing recordkeeping regulation, Micah Dickie, an attorney with Fisher Phillips’ Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group, previously told the McKnight’s Business Daily that the proposal “would increase employer obligations by a dramatic degree.”
