States sue over workplace injury reporting rule

Workplace accidents are no joke. According to the National Safety Council, someone is injured on the job every seven seconds. While there are obvious reasons to ensure employees don't get hurt, employers also often suffer economically when someone is involved in a dangerous incident. In 2016 alone, the National Safety Council found that work-related injuries resulted in the loss of 104 million production days. That's quite a lot of money to be lost, and it's clearly in the business owner's best interest to avoid these issues whenever possible. 

In terms of safety at work, there are few organizations doing as much as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This government agency has been protecting workers' rights since 1971, and OSHA's scope has grown in this time period. In fact, a change in current regulations is causing a controversy about how OSHA tracks annual injury reports or illnesses. 

A rollback of a 2016 regulation requiring businesses with more than 250 employees to electronically submit annual reports on employee injuries has forced six states to sue OSHA. 

What's changing? 
In 2016, the Obama administration's OSHA officials created a rule that required employees to electronically submit data concerning workplace injuries. According to Insurance Journal, this was supposed to give workers more of a voice when discussing hazards on the job as well as encouraging employers to create safer work environments. 

However, OSHA reversed this decision on January 25, 2019. Prior to this ruling, employers simply had to keep records onsite in case OSHA officials wanted to see them. This is the rule businesses will now revert to. The reasoning for this change had to do with data security as well as overall cost. 

When filling out injury forms, employers often have to include information about the person that was hurt. OSHA contended that this data could be considered personally identifiable information, which could fall into the hands of hackers during transmission. The fear is that someone who is already suffering from a malady caused by an on-the-job incident would also have to contend with cybercriminals stealing their identity. 

Additionally, Insurance Journal states that this decision was also reached in accordance with the resources needed to track online forms. 

Why sue? 
In reaction to this ruling, six states are now suing OSHA to prevent the change. Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Minnesota and New York have all stood up to state their disagreement with the alteration of the 2016 regulation. These states contend that policymakers can learn a lot about workplace injuries by having quick and easy access to this digital data, and that storing this information as physical documents would be a detriment to the possible learning experiences this information could lead to. 

As it is with most lawsuits of this scale, the end results will take quite some time to come to a head. In the meantime, employers will simply revert to the pre-2016 way of collecting injury forms. However, the lawsuits from these states could bring back the Obama-era regulation, and as such, businesses should endeavor to at least stay current with this story. 

Employee safety is obviously the first priority, but the security of data must also be considered. That said, government policies generally do best when they come from well-kept information. Hopefully, OSHA can find a way to accomplish this task without risking worker information in the process. 

Categorised in: Business Law

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