The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently extended, for the second time, the enforcement deadline for compliance with electronic reporting of injury and illness data through its Injury Tracking Application (ITA) until December 15, 2017.
The new rule took effect January 1, 2017, and required certain employers to submit injury and illness information electronically through the new tracking application. The information required to be submitted to OSHA remains largely unchanged from the information already required to be kept under current regulations. In other words, the primary difference is that it must be submitted through the ITA rather than through traditional methods.
In late November, the deadline was pushed back again to December 15, 2017. Despite the second delay in enforcement it appears that the rule will eventually begin enforcement, even amid speculation that the rule might be scuttled entirely. For the time being, construction employers should be prepared to submit their 300A and related forms electronically for years 2016 and forward electronically by December 15, 2017 to insure compliance with the new rule and avoid exposure to citations.