OSHA Will Publish Employers’ Injury and Illness Reports

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will now require about 750,000 employers to submit detailed annual reports of workplace injuries and illnesses for publication online. The rule, announced May 11, takes effect Aug. 10, with initial reports due to be filed electronically in 2017.

Critics have said the publication of injury and illness reports would lead to public shaming of businesses for incidents that in some cases are outside of their control. This is information that employers already collect and is typically revealed to OSHA only during inspections or surveys. OSHA said it will cleanse the data of personal identification before posting it on the Internet.

Firms that are covered by OSHA’s record-keeping regulations and that have more than 250 employees—and businesses with at least 20 employees in certain high-risk industries—will be required to file the reports. States with their own occupational safety and health laws must adopt “substantially identical” provisions within six months, OSHA said.