OSHA Injury, Illness Summary Must Be Posted by February 1
Author: Ashley Shaw, XpertHR Legal Editor
January 30, 2014
Employers subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) recordkeeping rule need to post OSHA Form 300A, Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, no later than February 1 of each year. This year, February 1 falls on a Saturday. As a result, employers that are not open for business over the weekend will need to post Form 300a by Friday, January 31, 2014.
Covered employers must keep the form posted in every applicable establishment in a conspicuous place where notices are usually posted from February 1 to April 30 of every year. A copy should be provided to employees who travel between different worksites.
The Form 300a is a summary form. It differs from OSHA Form 300, which is a log of all injuries and illnesses that occurred in the workplace. Only Form 300a should be posted. It should contain the total number of injuries and illnesses that were logged in the Form 300 the previous year. Form 300 should have an accurate and complete log of all the injuries and illnesses that occurred the previous year. If no injuries or illnesses occurred, the summary should reflect "zero" as the total.
Before posting the summary, OSHA requires that a company executive examine the Form 300 log and certify that he or she has scrutinized it and that he or she reasonably believes the summary to be accurate.
OSHA considers an executive to be one of the following:
- An owner;
- An officer;
- The highest ranking official; or
- The highest ranking official's supervisor.
OSHA may issue citations to employers that are not compliant with this recordkeeping requirement. Posting violations run up to $7,000.