The new recordkeeping rule of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will take effect as scheduled on January 1, but in settling a lawsuit last week, the agency agreed to focus initially on compliance assistance, rather than enforcement.
A nonprofit foundation that analyzes employment trends and polices has identified six regulations that it claims "impose significant burdens on the American workplace because they are confusing, duplicative, obsolete or unneeded."
The federal government has dropped - for now - a proposal to require employers to separately report nerve, tendon, or spinal-disk injuries in their workplaces.
If you've been around the benefits world for a while, you probably remember the Paperwork Reduction Act. And if you take a good look around your office, you might get a chuckle out of the reams of records stored all around you.
OSHA Chief Charles Jeffress had hoped to publish its final recordkeeping rule by now, so that the new forms would be in place in January 2000. That didn't happen, however. He explained the implementation delay to January 2001 by saying: "It's critical to the success of the new system for people to have the training and support they need to help them learn the differences(in the new plan). OSHA has promised to provide that. (...assistance to...) employers and state OSHA programs".
