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COTTON FARMING IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE GINNING INDUSTRY.
OSHA Changes Rule On Injury Reporting The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has rather abruptly issued a new rule, changing the requirements for reporting injuries and fatalities. Under the old rule, employers were required to notify OSHA within eight hours of the event if they had a workplace-related fatality, or if a workplace accident resulted in the hospitalization of three or more employees. The requirement for fatalities has remained essentially the same under the new rules, but requirements for reporting injuries have changed significantly. First of all, they have changed the time requirement for reporting injuries. You have 24 hours from the time you learn of an injury to report it. On the other hand, you now have to report any time a single worker is hospitalized for treatment due to a work-related injury. In addition, any eye loss must be reported, as well as any amputation. The amputation requirement is where the real issues begin. When OSHA originally proposed this updated reporting requirement, it had used a definition of amputation that required the loss of bone before an injury would count as an amputation. This rule was sent out for public comment in 2011 and was then left dormant. Last month, OSHA suddenly issued the final rule, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2015. The big surprise comes when you read the final rule carefully and discover that the definition of amputation has been changed to one that does not require loss of bone or hospitalization. So, now that the rule is final, the loss of a fingertip or tip of a toe without any bone loss or hospitalization is supposed to be reported to OSHA, according to this updated final rule. In the final rule, OSHA stated that there were 14 hospitalization incidents reported in 2010 under the old rule. The agency is estimating there will be between 66,000 and 100,000 injuries reported per year under the new rule. Stay tuned as employers and our
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Module Mover Chain
1-800-367-9992 Stocked in Louisiana and Oregon A Division of
www.cottonmodulechain.com COTTON FARMING NOVEMBER 2014
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