Dive Brief:
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration released a new final rule requiring certain employers to submit data on work-related injuries, which will then be posted on the agency’s website, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
- The rule applies to businesses with 250 or more employees in industries already required to keep records of workplace injuries and related illnesses. Companies with 20 to 249 employees in these industries will now also have to file electronic reports.
- According to OSHA, about 476,000 establishments will be affected by the rule, which takes effect in August.
Dive Insight:
OSHA believes that publicly disclosing a company’s safety record will spur companies to do more to curb workplace injuries. The rule could lead to public shaming of companies with high work-related injury rates.
The National Association of Manufacturers slammed the new rule, calling it “a misguided attempt at transparency that sacrifices employee and employer privacy, allows for distribution of proprietary information and creates burdens for all manufacturers.”
But Christine Owens, director of the National Employment Law Project, said the rule would help OSHA focus its resources on worksites that warrant more scrutiny, according to the Huffington Post.
Businesses must begin submitting the data on Jan. 1, 2017. The designated industries, published in an appendix to the final rule, include:
- Ambulatory healthcare services;
- General medical and surgical hospitals;
- Psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals;
- Specialty (except psychiatric and substance abuse) hospitals;
- Nursing care facilities;
- Residential mental retardation, mental health and substance abuse facilities;
- Community care facilities for the elderly; and
- Other residential care facilities.