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COTTON FARMING IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE GINNING INDUSTRY.
More Timely Advice On OSHA’s New Rules In mid-September of 2014, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced new recordkeeping and reporting requirements for U.S. employers effective Jan. 1, 2015. The changes to recordkeeping only affect a few employers, but the changes to the reporting requirements could have a profound affect on cotton gins. While OSHA considers cotton gins agriculture for safety standards, we are still covered by the recordkeeping and reporting requirements of the law. This means that work-related injuries and illnesses must be recorded, and some must be reported directly to OSHA. The newly finalized rule changes what industries have to keep records and what has to be reported directly and how soon. A few small and relatively safe industries are no longer required to keep injury and illness records under the new rule. Cotton gins were not exempted. For the past several years, OSHA has had a reporting requirement that said any fatality or catastrophic accident must be reported to OSHA within eight hours. A catastrophic accident was defined as three or more employees being hospitalized (in-patient) for the same incident. The new rule greatly expands what must be reported and changes the time frame in which the employer must notify OSHA. Beginning Jan. 1, 2015, any workrelated fatality must be reported to OSHA within eight hours of the death. Any work-related in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye must be reported to OSHA within 24 hours of the medical procedure. Amputations include loss of a limb or appendage that has been severed or cut off in the accident or lost due to irreparable damage in an incident and includes the loss of the tip of a finger whether or not there was bone loss. It does not include other severe trauma such as degloving or avulsions (loss of tissue ripped away from the limb). It also doesn’t consider loss of an ear, chipping of teeth or scalping as amputations, but these
30 COTTON FARMING
JANUARY 2015
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