By: Valerie Butera, Esq.
Although OSHA’s new reporting rule has been in effect for less than a year, it has caused some major changes in the way that OSHA operates. Since the new reporting rule went into effect on January 1, 2015, OSHA has received 200 to 250 reports of work-related deaths, inpatient hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye each week. As OSHA anticipated, compliance with the rule has focused the agency’s attention on industries and hazards that it had not focused on before.
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Around 40 percent of the newly filed reports have prompted OSHA inspections. Another 46 percent have resulted in what the agency refers to as a “rapid response investigation.” In a rapid response investigation, OSHA contacts the reporting employer and instructs the employer to investigate the root cause of the incident, determine how to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, and report these findings back to OSHA in about a week.
When OSHA is dissatisfied with an employer’s response—such as reports that merely blame the victim—it will proceed to conduct its own inspection of the incident.