Fresno, California – Datatech has learned that the California division of the Occupational Safety and Health agency has published a new regulation impacting California agribusinesses. Cal/OSHA is requiring all employers with over 250 employees or businesses deemed hazardous like agriculture who have 20 to 249 employees file their 300A forms for 2017 work related injuries electronically by December 31, 2018
The emergency regulation was posted on October 18 and the proposed regulation will now be sent to the Office of Administrative Law on October 23. OAL provides a five-day comment period and after the comment period, OAL has 10 days to review the proposal.
Earlier this year Datatech reported on Fed/OSHA’s mandate that California employers covered by injury and illness recordkeeping requirements were required to upload their 300A summaries to the federal agency’s Injury Tracking Application online.
The Farm Employers Labor Service commented on this emergency regulation saying that this has a lot to do with coming inline with the Feds, “Cal/OSHA says they wish to relieve “confusion” among California employers created by the federal agency’s mandate to file these reports electronically, though it is unclear whether the new state mandate will supplant the federal mandate. The agency also justifies its emergency action by claiming federal OSHA may withdraw its approval of California’s state plan claiming Cal/OSHA failed to enact reporting requirements that are “substantially similar” to federal requirements as required by federal law.”
A spokesperson for lawyers for the Agricultural Personnel Management Association, Barsamian and Moody say employers should prepare now, “It is likely that the regulations will become effective in November, so employers should begin reviewing their 2017 OSHA logs and summaries. The time between the effective date and deadline for submission may be short, and with the holiday season and end-of-year tasks employers need to stay ahead of the deadline.”
Datatech services agribusiness nationwide with farm accounting software that substantially eases human resource management functions.