On Friday, May 20, 2016, the Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) posted a “correction” to its earlier final rules released on May 12th. The correction provides additional detail with respect to employer requirements to provide access to the OSHA 300 and 301 reports. View the correction.
The rules now establish a regulatory right to these reports for employees, former employees, and their representatives and compel employers to provide the information with no cost in very short time frames: provide a copy of the 301 Incident Report for an employee and the 300 log by the end of the next business day after request; provide a copy of the 301 Incident Report for the entire establishment within 7 calendar days after request.
The rules further delineate OSHA’s policy direction to expand access to injury and illness reports to unions and attorneys representing employees and former employees. The no cost immediate access to this information may result in increased litigation and workers’ compensation claims being filed. See the Q and A excerpt below
Do I have to give my employees and their representatives access to the OSHA injury and illness records?
Yes, your employees, former employees, their personal representatives, and their authorized employee representatives have the right to access the OSHA injury and illness records, with some limitations, as discussed below.
Who is an authorized employee representative?An authorized employee representative is an authorized collective bargaining agent of employees.
Who is a ‘‘personal representative’’ of an employee or former employee?
A personal representative is:
(A) Any person that the employee or former employee designates as such, in writing; or
(B) The legal representative of a deceased or legally incapacitated employee or former employee.
If an employee or representative asks for access to the OSHA 300 Log, when do I have to provide it?
When an employee, former employee, personal representative, or authorized employee representative asks for copies of your current or stored OSHA 300 Log(s) for an establishment the employee or former employee has worked in, you must give the requester a copy of the relevant OSHA 300 Log(s) by the end of the next business day.
May I remove the names of the employees or any other information from the OSHA 300 Log before I give copies to an employee, former employee, or employee representative?
No, you must leave the names on the 300 Log. However, to protect the privacy of injured and ill employees, you may not record the employee’s name on the OSHA 300 Log for certain ‘‘privacy concern cases,’’ as specified in § 1904.29(b)(6) through (9).
If an employee or representative asks for access to the OSHA 301 Incident Report, when do I have to provide it?
(A) When an employee, former employee, or personal representative asks for a copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report describing an injury or illness to that employee or former employee, you must give the requester a copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report containing that information by the end of the next business day.
(B) When an authorized employee representative asks for copies of the OSHA 301 Incident Reports for an establishment where the agent represents employees under a collective bargaining agreement, you must give copies of those forms to the authorized employee representative within 7 calendar days. You are only required to give the authorized employee representative information from the OSHA 301 Incident Report section titled ‘‘Tell us about the case.’’ You must remove all other information from the copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report or the equivalent substitute form that you give to the authorized employee representative.
May I charge for the copies?
No, you may not charge for these copies the first time they are provided. However, if one of the designated persons asks for additional copies, you may assess a reasonable charge for retrieving and copying the records.
