Tracking changes create concerns

Recent changes to the electronic record-keeping rule have caused concern for employee advocates. 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration amended the regulation by rescinding the requirement for organizations with 250 or more employees to electronically submit information from OSHA forms 300 and 301, but the organizations are still required to submit information from their Form 300A summaries, including confidential business information.

In March, the attorneys general of six states filed a lawsuit challenging the rollbacks on the grounds that the agency failed to provide a “reasoned explanation” for its actions.

Deborah Berkowitz, senior fellow at the Washington-based National Employment Law Project, said OSHA has not filled the additional 33 full-time jobs allotted to the agency for 2019, and she is concerned that any further rollbacks of the electronic record-keeping rule, such as the requirement to provide OSHA with summary data, “would be really bad.

OSHA uses that data for targeted inspections.” But the electronic record-keeping places a burden on employers and can also be used by union workers or plaintiffs’ attorneys to further their campaigns when it is publicly available, said Jason Mills, partner and employer representative in the Los Angeles office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.

“Fortunately, OSHA cut (the electronic record-keeping provisions) down, but it’s not ideal,” he said. “But I don’t see anything really changing on that in the immediate future.”