OSHA recently announced a National Emphasis Program (NEP) directed toward record keeping (OSHA 300 LOG) which is discussed in this article. While the program is directed at specified industries, in fact, it will also have an impact on employers who are not within the program industries because the NEP has heightened OSHA’s overall degree of scrutiny toward these records. The NEP also contains a focused inquiry into employer incentive programs (e.g., monetary awards, prizes, etc.) based on the lack of employee injuries and illnesses at the workplace which OSHA believes discourage employees from reporting injuries and illnesses so they will not forfeit the incentive award, thus resulting in the concealment of the true number of injuries and illnesses on the OSHA Logs. There are also potential criminal liabilities involved in intentional underreporting and false certifications of the records.
Read full article here.
