Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements; Withdrawal

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <SUBAGY>Occupational Safety and Health Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>29 CFR Part 1904</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. OSHA-2009-0044]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1218-AC45</RIN> <SUBJECT>Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements; Withdrawal</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Department of Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Withdrawal of proposed rule; termination of rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> OSHA is withdrawing the proposal to amend the OSHA 300 Log by adding a column that employers would use to record work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Withdrawal of the proposal does not change any employer's obligation to complete and retain occupational injury and illness records under OSHA's regulations. Withdrawal of the proposal also does not change the recording criteria or definitions used for these records. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This withdrawal is effective July 1, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Press Inquiries:</E> Frank Meilinger, Director, OSHA Office of Communications, telephone: 202-693-1999; email: <E T="03">meilinger.francis2@dol.gov.</E> <E T="03">General and technical information:</E> Andrew Levinson, Director, Directorate of Standards and Guidance, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, telephone: 202-693-1950; email: <E T="03">levinson.andrew@dol.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Citation Method</HD> In the docket for this rulemaking found at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> every submission was assigned a document identification (ID) number that consists of the docket number (OSHA-2009-0044) followed by an additional four-digit number. For example, the document ID number for the proposed rule is OSHA-2009-0044-0001. Some document ID numbers include one or more attachments, such as one of the submissions by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Document ID OSHA-2009-0044-0074). When citing exhibits in the docket in this preamble, OSHA includes the term “Document ID” followed by the last four digits of the document number, and an attachment identifier, if applicable. In a citation that contains two or more document ID numbers, the document ID numbers are separated by semi-colons. The exhibits in the docket, including public comments, supporting materials, meeting transcripts, and other documents, are listed on <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> All exhibits are listed in the docket index on <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> but some exhibits ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> copyrighted material) are not available to read or download from that website. All materials in the docket are available for inspection through the OSHA Docket Office; telephone (202) 693-2350. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Overview of OSHA's Recordkeeping Rule and the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses</HD> OSHA's regulations at 29 CFR part 1904 require covered employers to record work-related injuries and illnesses that involve death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional (29 CFR 1904.7). Employers covered by these regulations must record each recordable employee injury and illness using three forms: • OSHA Form 300, the “Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses,” or equivalent, which provides basic information about injuries and illnesses; • OSHA Form 301, the supplemental “Injury and Illness Incident Report,” or equivalent, that provides additional details about each case recorded on the 300 Log; and • OSHA Form 300A, the “Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses” prepared at the end of each calendar year, which indicates the total number of injuries and illnesses during the year. These occupational injury and illness records provide information for employers and employees on the injuries and illnesses occurring in the workplace and the hazards that cause or contribute to them. The information assists employers in identifying and correcting hazardous workplace conditions. The records also inform employees about the hazards they face. Occupational injury and illness records also provide information for OSHA. During the initial stages of an inspection, an OSHA representative typically reviews the injury and illness data for the establishment as an aid to focusing the inspection effort on the safety and health hazards suggested by the injury and illness records. The recordkeeping regulations also require establishments with 250 or more employees that are currently required to keep OSHA injury and illness records, and establishments with 20-249 employees in certain designated industries, to submit information electronically from the 300A Summary to OSHA or OSHA's designee on an annual basis (29 CFR 1904.41). OSHA uses this information to help target enforcement efforts, and to help the agency identify the scope of occupational safety and health problems and decide whether regulatory intervention, compliance assistance, or other measures are warranted. In addition, records of work-related injuries and illnesses are the source of information for the national statistics on workplace injuries and illnesses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has conducted an annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) since 1972. Each year BLS sends the SOII to approximately 230,000 establishments that represent a statistical sample of employers in most industries and across all size classes in the country. OSHA's recordkeeping regulations require employers who receive the SOII to complete and submit it to BLS (29 CFR 1904.42). The SOII is used to obtain information from employers' 301 Incident Reports and 300A Summaries. The data BLS collects from the selected establishments are the primary source of occupational injury and illness statistics for the nation, including injury and illness incidences and rates for a variety of case and worker characteristics. Using the information from the SOII, BLS produces information on two basic categories of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses: (1) counts and rates by detailed industry and case type, and (2) counts and rates of case circumstances and worker demographics for cases that result in days away from work (DAFW). Beginning with 2011 data, BLS began a pilot study for a new data series, which included the details of case circumstances and worker characteristics on days of job transfer or work restriction (DJTR) cases ( <E T="03">https://www.bls.gov/iif/days-of-job-transfer-or-restriction.htm</E> ). DJTR cases are OSHA-recordable cases which result only in job transfer or restricted work activity, without any days away from work. This includes instances in which the injured or ill worker is transferred to another job or assignment, works less than full time, or is unable to perform all of their routine job duties. The pilot study includes data for rotating sets of six selected industry subsectors. BLS publishes occupational injury and illness data on the BLS web page at <E T="03">http://www.bls.gov,</E> and makes the aggregate and detailed results available for both research and public information. BLS pledges confidentiality to each employer selected to complete the SOII (as it does on all BLS surveys); therefore, BLS does not publish or share the establishment-specific injury and illness data with the public or government agencies, including OSHA. For all occupational injuries and illnesses combined, BLS publishes aggregate and industry totals for the number and rates of injuries and illnesses by industry and type of case. For occupational illnesses (skin diseases or disorders, respiratory conditions, poisonings, hearing loss, and all other illnesses), BLS also publishes the totals from the illness columns on the 300A Summary. For DAFW and for DJTR cases in selected industry subsectors, BLS publishes more detailed estimates of case circumstances and worker characteristics. These are derived from information employers provide from 301 Incident Reports or equivalent forms, or otherwise requested as part of the SOII, about the specific characteristics of cases. Case circumstances and worker characteristics include the employee's age, race, sex, occupation, and length of service; the employer's industry classification; the part of the body affected; the nature of the injury or illness; the source of injury or illness ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> bodily motion or position, machinery, fire); and the causal event or exposure leading to the injury or illness ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> overexertion, repetitive motion, fall). BLS uses the case circumstances and worker characteristics information from the 301 Incident Reports to develop and publish information on DAFW and DJTR musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). Since 2011, BLS identifies MSD cases as those cases where the nature of the injury or illness is pinched nerve; herniated disc; meniscus tear; sprains, strains, tears; hernia (traumatic and nontraumatic); pain, swelling, and numbness; carpal or tarsal tunnel syndrome; Raynaud's syndrome or phenomenon; musculoskeletal system and connective tissue diseases and disorders, when the event or exposure leading to the injury or illness is overexertion and bodily reaction, unspecified; overexertion involving outside sources; repetitive motion involving microtasks; other and multiple exertions or bodily reactions; and rubbed, abraded, or jarred by vibration ( <E T="03">http://www ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 47k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━