Last July, we wrote about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s new electronic reporting requirements, which will require certain employers (those with 250 or more employees, or those with 20-249 employees in specific industries) to electronically submit injury and illness data. When OSHA announced the new reporting requirements, it gave a deadline of July 1, 2017, for employers to electronically submit their information in a Form 300A. Last week, OSHA announced that it has indefinitely postponed that deadline and conveyed that it is not accepting electronic submissions at this time.

At this point, OSHA and the new presidential administration have not hinted that they plan to make any substantive changes to employer obligations to complete and retain injury and illness records. We have seen, however, a significant change in the course of employer regulations across the board since the Trump Administration took office, so the delay in the implementation of the electronic reporting requirements could suggest that substantive changes are in the works.

As we discussed in a March blog post, President Trump has already repealed the Fair Play and Safe Workplaces regulations finalized last August, which required reporting of a host of violations under labor laws including OSHA. Additionally, OSHA has not published any information about enforcement fines issued since Inauguration Day, whereas under the Obama administration, OSHA issued more than 400 news releases annually about fines and other enforcement actions. This change marks a dramatic shift from the prior administration’s attitude that employers should be admonished to clean up any issues lest they face a hefty fine or other penalty. The postponement of the electronic reporting requirement appears to be yet another development in that shift.

Stay tuned for further developments.