South Florida Injury Lawyers Blog
Federal workplace regulator OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) announced they were suspending the requirement mandating companies submit employee injury logs. This was after the Center for Investigative Reporting showed the regulator failed to set up a website for the roughly 450,000 companies require to electronically submit data from their worker injury and illness logs. Even though the regulator was reportedly ready to launch a website with information for employers back in February, that site never posted. Instead, OSHA announced it wasn’t accepting electronic submissions of worker injury reports, and then later extended the deadline.
Critics worried at the time that even just a delay would potentially strip workers of key protections and allow companies to avoid accountability. A senior fellow at the National Employment Law Product was quoted by RevealNews.com as saying OSHA would not be able to focus its efforts on the most dangerous workplaces because it wouldn’t have data necessary to even identify those companies.
Now, in a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the U.S. Department of Labor and OSHA, three non-profit public interest and research groups (Public Citizen Health Research Group, American Public Health Association and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists) allege OSHA and U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta are in violation of the law by failing to follow proper procedures by extending the work injury reporting deadline without allowing the public to weigh in – and then announcing it wouldn’t even accept data from the 450,000 companies subject to the rule. Continue reading →