CONN-OSHA Quarterly

Volume No. 55
January 2009 

• Highlights of OSHA Recordkeeping Forms
• 2007 Work Injury Fatalities
• Hazard Corner
• CONN-OSHA Training Update

Highlights of OSHA Recordkeeping Forms
By Erin C. Wilkins, Research Analyst

When paying a friendly visit, an OSHA compliance officer will start by looking over your OSHA Recordkeeping Forms. These forms measure your establishment’s safety and health record. Failure to keep these records accurate and up-to-date can lead to fines. There are 3 OSHA Recordkeeping Forms:

• 300 Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses

• 300A Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses

• 301 Injury and Illness Incident Report

These forms were updated in January 2004. The new forms added a Hearing Loss category under Column M: Injury or Illness Type. You may call 860-263-6941 to re-quest copies or download the forms in Excel or PDF for-mat at http://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/RKforms.html

The information on the OSHA 300A Summary Form is used to calculate your Days Away Restricted Transferred (DART) rate. This rate provides the number of cases with days away, job transfer, or restriction per 100 full-time employees. If your DART rate is higher than the national DART rate for private industry, you may be subject to an inspection.

1. When an OSHA compliance officer requests your OSHA log, you must provide it within:

   1. 4 days

   2. 4 business hours

   3. By the count of 3. One, two...
       

2. You must keep copies of OSHA records for:

   1. 5 years

   2. 30 years

   3. Until the cows come home

The OSHA 300A Summary must be completed and posted, where employees may easily see it, from February 1st through April 30th. Upon employee request, you have until the end of the next business day to provide copies of the OSHA Forms 300 Log, 300A Summary, and his or her individual OSHA 301 Incident Report.

When a government representative requests to see your OSHA records, you have 4 business hours to provide them (Question #1: answer B). You are required to keep these records for five years, updating the OSHA 300 Log as necessary (Question #2: answer A).

3. If an injured employee receives First Aid treatment at a hospital, it must be recorded on the OSHA log.

   1. True

   2. False
       

4. If a case has 1 day away from work and 3 days of job restriction, you should check:

   1. Column H: Cases with Days Away from Work

   2. Column I: Cases with Job Transfer/Restriction

   3. Both a & b

If a case is limited to First Aid treatment and there are no days away from work, job transfer, or job restriction, do not include the case on your OSHA 300 Log. The case is not OSHA recordable, even if the First Aid treatment is administered at a health clinic, emergency room, hospital, or other medical treatment facility (Question #3: answer B). A list of First Aid treatment is listed on pages 41 and 42 of an online presentation at http://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/comp/RKComprehensive_Rev5.pdf. OSHA recordable incidents include:

• Treatment beyond First Aid

• Diagnosis of a significant injury or illness

• Hearing loss

• Loss of consciousness

• Needlestick and sharp object injuries that are con-taminated with potentially infectious materials

• Medical removal of an employee for surveillance per OSHA standard

If a recordable incident occurs, and the employee did not have days away from work, job transfer or restriction, the case is recorded in Column J: Other Recordable Cases. Cases with days away from work and days of job trans-fer/restriction should be counted once and only once in Column H: Cases with Days Away from Work. This is true even when the job transfer/restriction days exceed the number of days away from work (Question #4: answer A).

5. A doctor tells an injured employee to stay out of work for 1 week. However, the employee is only scheduled to work 3 days. Do you:

   1. Record 3 days away – the amount of time the employee actually missed.

   2. Record 7 days – the amount of recovery time.

   3. Consult your Magic 8 Ball.
       

6. An employee clocks in at 8:15 a.m. and is injured at 8:30 a.m. He goes home for the rest of the day but returns to full-duty work the next day. Do you:

   1. Record the case in Column H: Days Away from Work Case with 1 day away.

   2. Record the case in Column I: Job Transfer/ Restric-tion Case with 1 day of job transfer/restriction.

   3. Record the case in Column J: Other Recordable cases--if the injury required treatment beyond First Aid.
       

7. A person is injured in December 2008 and is out 2 days in January 2009. Do you:

   1. Record the case on 2008’s log and the number of days on the 2009 log.

   2. Record both the case and number of days on the 2008 log.

   3. Record both the case and number of days on the 2009 log.

For each case, you must record the number of days away in Column K and the number of days of job trans-fer/restriction in Column L. Start counting with the day af-ter the injury and count calendar days. (Question #5: an-swer B. Question #6: answer C). If an individual case has a large amount of lost time, you may stop counting at 180 days. If a case has days away from work that continue into the next year, record the number of days in the year the injury or illness occurred (Question #7: answer B).

8. Yankees fan Joe and Red Sox fan Erin get in a fist-fight at work. Joe suffers a broken nose but Erin is unscathed. Do you:

   1. Record Joe’s injury – it happened in the workplace.

   2. Do not record Joe’s injury—it was not work-related.

   3. Do not record Joe’s injury. Yankees fans do not deserve sympathy.

9. An employee arriving at work slips and falls in the company parking lot, breaking his wrist. Is this re-cordable?

   1. Yes. The accident occurred on company property.

   2. Yes, if he is driving the company car.

   3. No. The employee had not started his work shift.
       

10. A King’s Groceries store clerk is shopping in King’s Groceries for her family on her day off. She slips and falls on a wet floor, tearing her ACL. The injury requires surgery. Is this recordable?

    1. Yes. She was in her work environment when the injury occurred.

    2. No. She was present as a member of the general public, not as an employee.

    3. Is this the last question? I’m getting tired.

Work-relatedness is presumed for injuries and illnesses occurring in the work environment. Assume the injury or illness is recordable unless it is specifically addressed in the exceptions. If an injury or illness falls into one of the exceptions listed below, it is not work-related and it is not recordable (Question #8: answer A. Question #9: answer A. Question #10: answer B). Work-related exceptions:

• Present as a member of the general public.

• Symptoms arise in workplace but are solely due to non-work related event or exposure.

• Voluntary participation in a wellness program. • Eating, drinking, or preparing food or drink for per-sonal consumption.

• Personal tasks outside assigned working hours.

• Personal grooming, self-medication for non-work-related conditions, or intentionally self-inflicted inju-ries.

• Motor vehicle accident occurring in a parking lot or access road during a normal commute to or from work.

• Common cold or flu.

• Mental illness, unless employee voluntarily provides a medical opinion from a Physician or other Licensed Health Care Professional (PLHCP) that affirms the mental illness is work-related.

There are many OSHA recordkeeping rules not mentioned in this article. If you would like more information, please call 860-263-6941 or e-mail joseph.weber@ct.gov to re-quest information packets.

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2007 Work Injury Fatalities

In 2007, work injuries in America cost 5,488 lives, 38 of which occurred in Connecticut. This translates into a national rate of 3.7 deaths per 100,000 work-ers and a Connecticut rate of 2.1 deaths per 100,000 workers.

While these results are preliminary, this is the smallest national total since the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program was first con-ducted in 1992. The year 2001 saw a high of 8,801-work injury deaths, 33 percent of which were attrib-uted to the September 11 terrorist attacks. When the September 11 deaths are not included, the high occurred in 1994 with 6,632 work-related fatalities.

Connecticut averages 41 work-injury deaths a year. That number has ranged from 31 deaths in 1993 to a high of 57 in 1998. Since much of Connecticut’s employment is in low-risk industries, the state has consistently been able to maintain a fatality rate below the national average.

Of the 50 states, Texas lost the most lives in 2007 with a total of 527 deaths, followed by California with 407 deaths. Connecticut ranked 40th in work-injury fatali-ties with Alaska, Idaho, Hawaii, North Dakota, Maine, South Dakota, Delaware, Vermont, and Rhode Island reporting fewer work-injury deaths.

Twenty-four percent of Connecticut’s 2007 work-injury fatalities occurred in the transportation and material moving occupational group. The construction and extraction occupational group followed with 21 percent of Connecticut’s work-injury fatalities. On the national level, fishers and related fishing workers had the highest rate of work-injury fatalities at 111.8 deaths per 100,000 workers.

More information is available at http://www.ctdol.state.ct.us/osha/2007/Fatalities/fatalities07.htm 

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Hazard Corner ...

In 2007, electrocution killed 212 workers in America. Forty-four percent of these deaths were a result of contact with overhead power lines. In Connecticut, such an incident killed a 30 year-old father of two.

A groundsman was two weeks into his job for a tree-trimming company when he was fatally electrocuted. The company was clearing trees from power lines, which were being transferred to new poles. A co-worker was in an ae-rial lift bucket cutting branches. The branches were then collected and fed into a wood chipper. The groundsman was standing near the truck when the metal boom came too close to the power lines. Electricity arced from the power line and coursed through the bucket and truck. When the groundsman touched the truck, he was fatally electrocuted. His co-worker in the aerial bucket was un-harmed but traumatized by the event.

In order to prevent this tragedy, power lines could have been sheathed or the power cut while tree work was per-formed. A workplace hazard assessment, required under OSHA regulations, would have identified risks and enabled workers to take precautionary action. OSHA standards re-lated to but not limited to power lines include:

• When working near energized lines or equipment, aerial lift trucks shall be grounded or barricaded and considered as energized equipment.

• Employees standing on the ground shall avoid con-tacting equipment or machinery working adjacent to energized lines or equipment.

• A person shall be designated to observe clearance of the equipment and give timely warning for all operations where it is difficult for the operator to main-tain the desired clearance by visual means.

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CONN_OSHA Training Update

• Workplace Violence January 6, 2009  - This workshop is designed to make you more aware of the issues related to workplace violence and to provide tools to help manage, defuse, and prevent it.

• Powered Industrial Trucks January 27, 2009 - Learn how to meet OSHA’s Powered Industrial Truck Standard 29 CFR 1910.178 require-ments. This workshop will cover safe work practices, methods of providing formal and practical training, and tools for operator evaluation.

• OSHA Recordkeeping January 30, 2009 - Learn how to fill out the OSHA log of Work-Related Injuries & Illnesses (Form 300) accurately and correctly. This class will be held from 9 am—12 noon.

• Lockout/Tagout: Understanding & Implementing Energy Control Procedures February 24, 2009  - OSHA’s 29 CFR 1910.147 standard that requires that energy sources be isolated to prevent accidental re-energization will be discussed.

• Trenching & Excavation Safety - April 14, 2009 - This workshop will provide an overview of 29 CFR 1926.650-652 ,excavations, including the role of the competent person. The session is designed to assist participants in identifying hazards at their workplace, especially those as-sociated with excavations and related activities.

• Breakfast Roundtable - This discussion group meets the third Tuesday every month from 8:15 am to 9:45 am. Pre-registration is required. To be placed on the e-mail distribution list, contact John Able at able.john@dol.gov

Classes are free and held at 200 Folly Brook Boulevard, Wethersfield, CT in Conference Room A/B from 10 am - 12 noon, unless otherwise noted in the class description. To register, contact John Able at able.john@dol.gov. Pre-registration is required. For more training information, visit www.ctdol.state.ct.us/osha/osha.htm.

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Connecticut Department of Labor - OSHA 38 Wolcott Hill Road Wethersfield, CT 06109 To receive the Quarterly electronically, contact gregory.grayson@dol.gov. In the subject line type “subscribe” and provide your e-mail address. You may also reach us by phone at (860) 263-6900 or visit our website at http://www.ctdol.state.ct.us/osha/osha.htm.

Fatality & Casualty Reporting  State & Town: CONN-OSHA (860) 263-6946 (local) or 1-866-241-4060 (toll-free) Private Employers: Report to Federal OSHA at 1-800-321-OSHA(6742)

OSHA-Quarterly Index

Last Updated: April 17, 2018