The OSHA electronic reporting rule becomes effective on December 1 for all gins with 20 or more employees. This means that if you are an affected employer, you have until December 1 to log onto the OSHA web site and report the data from 2016. Data reported is basically the information from the OSHA 300A form.
To calculate your number of employees for this rule, you need to determine the gins peak employment during the last calendar year. Each individual employed in the establishment at any time during the calendar year counts as one employee, including full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers. The employee count is based on each establishment separately, not the entire firm. Since separate records are maintained for each establishment, then the report is also based on each establishment.
As we have reported previously, this is a rule that TCGA opposed, and under the new administration the rule was postponed, but not withdrawn. Unless something happens in the next two weeks, however, the rule will be allowed to go into effect.
To enter your data, click here to go to the OSHA reporting web site, and simply follow the instructions on the site. Be sure you have your 2016 OSHA 300 and 300A forms on hand, as all the answers entered on the web site will be based on the data from these forms.
This should be a fairly simple rule to comply with, and it should not take long to fill in the information. Our main problem with the rule is that we don’t think employee information should be entered into an online database in the first place, but unless something happens in the next two weeks, this rule will kick in. Please mark this on your calendar and be sure you have your information entered into the database by December 1, in order to maintain compliance with this rule.
