Occupational Safety & Health

Assuring Accuracy in Employer Injury and Illness Records Gao ID: HRD-89-23 December 30, 1988

In response to a congressional request, GAO assessed the accuracy of employers' occupational injury and illness records and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) efforts to ensure accurate recordkeeping.

GAO found that: (1) there was significant occupational safety and health underreporting to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by employers nationwide; (2) two studies indicated that about 23 percent of work sites visited underrecorded injuries and illnesses, while another study showed that about one-half of 40 chemical industry employers failed to completely record injuries or illness in their logs; (3) inaccurate recordkeeping occurred because many employers either deliberately underrecorded injuries in response to incentives or were unaware of what they should record; and (4) many employers assigned low priority to recordkeeping, which sometimes led to inaccurate and outdated records. GAO also found that OSHA: (1) increased its fines for recordkeeping violations and assessed about $10 million in initial penalties against 65 employers for significant recordkeeping violations; and (2) modified its records review procedures to reduce its reliance on employer logs. GAO believes that OSHA actions to correct inaccurate recordkeeping problems will improve the effectiveness of its inspection process.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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