On May 17, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced that employers do not have to file injury and illness information online with OSHA by the July 1 filing deadline. As we noted in a previous alert, on May 11, 2016, OSHA issued a final rule requiring certain employers to submit injury and illness information electronically. While employers already submit workplace safety information to OSHA, it has so far been done in private. The new rule will make workplace safety data publicly available on OSHA’s website so that interested parties, such as competitors and unions, can search and download the data.

OSHA had previously set a deadline of July 1, 2017, for employers to file their injury and illness forms online. With the filing deadline only a month and a half away, OSHA has now delayed the filing. A new deadline has not been announced. OSHA has not offered a formal reason for the postponement. Yet, with six weeks to go before the deadline, OSHA had still not opened an online portal for employers to file the relevant forms.