OSHA TARGETS UNDERCOUNT

OSHA’s announcement Oct. 1 to initiate a National Emphasis Program (NEP) on recordkeeping accuracy will have a profound impact on employers required to report injury and illness data to the federal government.

When OSHA implements an NEP, usually run over a specified period, it means the agency is directing additional financial, operational and staff resources to an issue it perceives to be a problem. The NEP, in effect, tells OSHA regional and area offices – thus OSHA compliance officers across America – to elevate recordkeeping to the top of their checklists when they inspect workplaces.

Growing Scrutiny
Why do an NEP on recordkeeping now? The agency has been subject to damning scrutiny in recent years over the implication that the data it collects from employers are vastly inaccurate and misleading – often resulting in an untenable underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses.

An NEP is a powerful enforcement mechanism and can lead to new workplace rules because OSHA will examine data it collects during the process and draw conclusions about how to approach the issue going forward. OSHA cannot possibly inspect every workplace, but the NEP signals the agency intends to place greater emphasis on recordkeeping in regulation.

The whole issue of underreporting for OSHA has been like walking around with a stone in your shoe – discomfort for an agency whose primary responsibility is to ensure that employers provide safe and healthful places of employment for workers. Agency critics contend that OSHA cannot formulate effective workplace injury and illness policies if it does not know where, how and how often workers are being hurt or sickened.

Many severe injuries never make it into the OSHA recordkeeping system, according to critics, though many in academia and other circles stress that the undercount problem is multifaceted because different data systems capture different types of data, such as hospital or workers’ compensation records versus data on OSHA logs.

Politically, both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee have tackled underreporting in congressional hearings and through independent staff research. The Government Accountability Office and other organizations also have studied workplace recordkeeping.

Politicians Critical of Agency
Rep. George Miller, D-CA, who chairs Education and Labor, was particularly critical of OSHA during the last administration when agency leaders would come before the committee and exhort that injury and illness rates were falling – ostensibly because of their policies. Miller questioned those claims in the face of acknowledged shaky recordkeeping.

In June 2008, former OSHA manager Bob Whitmore, who had directed the OSHA’s national recordkeeping system since 1988, stunned the agency by testifying before Education and Labor that OSHA information was inaccurate because it willingly accepts underreported and falsified data from employers (OSHA annually collects injury and illness records from about 85,000 workplaces nationwide from employers who report the information on OSHA logs).

Even industry representatives have had a difficult time explaining underreporting, choosing to focus rebuttals on unintentional actions and confusion on the part of employers.

Taking some heat over underreporting also has been the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics because it helps OSHA and others draw conclusions about the nation’s state of workplace safety and health. A June 2008 report from the majority staff of the House Education and Labor Committee claimed that as much as 69 percent of injuries and illnesses occurring in U.S. workplaces may escape counting into the BLS’ annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses.

OSHA will focus the recordkeeping NEP on "selected" industries with high injury and illness rates, according to the agency – specifically "low rate establishments operating in historically high rate industries."

Workers To Be Interviewed
That means if companies are in industries like meat packing, passenger air transportation, iron, copper and steel foundries, nursing homes, marine cargo handling and motor vehicle seating manufacturing and they consistently show low rates on their OSHA 300 Logs then they should expect to be targeted. OSHA will conduct limited safety and health inspections under the recordkeeping NEP, but will interview and survey workers and perform detailed reviews of logs, making this program different than some others.

The agency will base its inspection criteria on Days Away From Work case rates, or the DART rate. Generally, approved participants in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) and Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) will be exempt from inspections.

Employers can expect citations to be issued under the NEP if they are in violation of recordkeeping procedures, but they typically will be labeled as "other-than serious" for first-time offenders. However, "willful," "repeat," or "failure to abate" cases will draw the attention and scrutiny of OSHA regional administrators or regional solicitors.

More: OSHA recordkeeping NEP instruction, House committee report on undercounting.

Photo: Rep. George Miller, D-CA