Florida Construction Law

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration just delayed the compliance deadline for a rule requiring employers submit worker illness and injury data electronically to the agency. The Labor Department on Wednesday suspended an Obama-era rule requiring that companies electronically report their injury and illness records, a move that effectively keeps these records from being publicly disclosed for the immediate future. Several business groups, including the Associated Builders & Contractors, Associated General Contractors of America and the National Association of Home Builders, had challenged the 2016 Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule in court and lobbied the administration to jettison it on the grounds that it could unfairly damage the reputation of some of their members. Companies have been required to maintain worker injury and illness logs since 1971, and between 1995 and 2012, OSHA had required about 180,000 establishments in high-hazard industrie...

The new rule requires employers in high-hazard industries to send OSHA injury and illness data contained on the OSHA 300 logs. In recent years, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has dramatically increased rulemaking that has impacted the roofing industry. The latest rule requires the public disclosure of workplace injuries and illnesses in an effort to improve tracking efforts and transparency in roofing and other industries. While those are worthy endeavors, this final rule regarding the digital reporting of injuries and illness is, sadly, yet another example of OSHA leadership enacting a final rule without first understanding the real-world implications that the rule will have on the construction industry — roofing in particular. The new rule, which went into effect recently requires employers in high-hazard industries such as roofing to send OSHA injury and illness data contained on the OSHA 300 logs. OSHA will then post this informati...