ORC Files Comments on OSHA Proposed Rulemaking to Add a Column for Musculoskeletal Disorders

ORC filed comments to OSHA March 30, 2010 in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to restore a column to the OSHA 300 Log that employers would use to record work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).  This proposed rule would require employers to place a check mark in the MSD column, instead of the column they currently mark, if a case is an MSD that meets the Recordkeeping regulation's general recording requirements.  OSHA’s purpose in restoring the column is to improve the accuracy and completeness of national occupational injury and illness statistics; provide valuable and industry specific information to assist OSHA in effectively targeting its inspection, outreach, guidance and enforcement efforts to address workplace MSDs; and provide useful establishment-level information that will help both employers and employees readily identify the incidence of MSDs.

ORC commented that:

• The column should help some employers develop a better understanding and appreciation of MSD-type conditions in the workplace.

• The criteria for subjective symptoms given in the proposal should be clarified and tightened; applying current work-relationship and severity tests will not limit recordable MSD cases to those that are reasonably significant and reasonably connected to the workplace.  

• The current preventive transfer interpretation, which OSHA proposes to eliminate, is critical for keeping inconsequential soft-tissue cases off the OSHA Log.

• The time frame for the proposed rule to take effect is too short to allow employers sufficient time to train their staff and modify their systems to collect and process the data.

ORC further advised OSHA that reporting requirements are truly sustainable only when the reporting mechanics are not overly cumbersome and when the recording criteria are understandable and seem fair and sensible.  Criteria that make virtually every minor discomfort potentially OSHA recordable will never achieve OSHA’s stated objectives.

The full text of ORC’s comments is attached below.