Rules tighten on workplace fatality reporting

WASHINGTON – Tightening its standards, the government issued new regulations Thursday that will require managers to file a detailed report within eight hours on fatal workplace accidents.

Severe on-the-job injuries that do not result in deaths but require hospitalization must be reported within 24 hours, under the new rules which take effect Jan. 1.

Such reports must be filed regardless of the size of the business to the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Previously, OSHA’s regulations required such reports only if three or more workers were killed or hospitalized as a result of a workplace accident.

“We can and must do more to keep America’s workers safe and healthy,” Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said in a statement. “Workplace injuries and fatalities are absolutely preventable, and these new requirements will help OSHA focus its resources and hold employers accountable for preventing them.”

The 24-hour reporting requirement includes work-related hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye, an OSHA statement said.

The new rule follows the release earlier in the day of a Bureau of Labor Statistics report that 4,405 workers were killed on the job in the United States in 2013.

Reporting single-instance hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule.

Such severe injuries can be clear signals “that serious hazards are likely to be present at a workplace and that an intervention is warranted to protect the other workers at the establishment,” said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health.