Rice Law Office Blog

Beginning on January 1, 2015 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) adopted new reporting requirements for employers under OSHA jurisdiction.  Employers are now required to report any work related fatality or injury resulting admittance to a hospital, amputation, or loss of an eye.

OSHA has received between 200 and 250 injury reports each week since the new requirements came into place.  At this rate, we can expect between 10,000 and 13,000 total reports in 2015.

OSHA has indicated that about 40 percent of these reported incidents result in on site inspections.  In 10 percent of all cases no action is taken, and in the remainder OSHA requested a letter from the employer detailing specifics of the incident and corrective actions taken.

 Not all states have implemented the new reporting requirements. If you have been hurt at work, resulting in hospitalization or time out of work, it is important to seek help from an attorney who will provide you with a free consultation and explain your rights and protections.

Image courtesy of Compliance and Safety under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Every year the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) publishes a list of the most common standard violations at construction sites. The list for 2014 is shown here:

1. Fall protection, construction
2. Hazard communication standard, general industry
3. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction
4. Respiratory protection, general industry
5. Powered industrial trucks, general industry
6. Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (
7. Ladders, construction
8. Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment, general industry
9. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements
10. Electrical systems design, general requirements, general industry

The construction industry accounted for over 20 percent of the 4,101 worker fatalities in US private industry for 2013. Compliance with OSHA standards can be the difference between life and death—this means effective training, maintenance, and supervision from the employer. Failing to meet any of the relevant OSHA standards at construction sites puts employees at risk, and poses a liability concern for the employer.