OSHA announces new requirements for reporting severe injuries

Updates list of industries exempt from record-keeping requirements

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced a final rule requiring employers to notify OSHA when an employee is killed on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. The rule, which also updates the list of employers partially exempt from OSHA record-keeping requirements, will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, for workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction.

Under the revised rule, employers will be required to notify OSHA of work-related fatalities within eight hours, and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or losses of an eye within 24 hours. Previously, OSHA's regulations required an employer to report only work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees. Reporting single hospitalizations, amputations* or loss of an eye was not required under the previous rule.

All employers covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, even those who are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records, are required to comply with OSHA's new severe injury and illness reporting requirements. To assist employers in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA is developing a Web portal for employers to report incidents electronically, in addition to the phone reporting options.

In addition to the new reporting requirements, OSHA has also updated the list of industries that, due to relatively low occupational injury and illness rates, are exempt from the requirement to routinely keep injury and illness records. The previous list of exempt industries was based on the old Standard Industrial Classification system and the new rule uses the North American Industry Classification System to classify establishments by industry. The new list is based on updated injury and illness data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new rule maintains the exemption for any employer with 10 or fewer employees, regardless of their industry classification, from the requirement to routinely keep records of worker injuries and illnesses.

If you have any questions, please call the LRA Self Insurer’s Fund for Workers’ Compensation Loss Prevention Department at (504) 454-2277.  

*An amputation is defined as the traumatic loss of a limb or other external body part. Amputations include a part, such as a limb or appendage, that has been severed, cut off, amputated (either completely or partially); fingertip amputations with or without bone loss; medical amputations resulting from irreparable damage; and amputations of body parts that have since been reattached. 

Follow me on Twitter, find me on Facebook

The 411 on the most popular Social Media Channels and how the LRA has found a home, all over the web.

The domination of Social Media in the dialogue of marketing shows no signs of slowing. The restaurant industry is increasingly challenged with keeping pace with this growing trend and many have yet to take advantage of these free tools. In Louisiana, given the number of independent operators, few have the financial resources to hire social media firms to handle these various channels.

The LRA determined in 2010 that it needed to be much more active with its Social Media and launched its Twitter and Facebook pages. Currently, the LRA has more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and a growing Facebook fan base approaching 800 fans.

Every Friday, the LRA finds its new members and welcomes them with a post on Facebook. Prior to the post, the LRA’s Social Media Director seeks out new members to tag them in the post.

“There are still so many restaurants that have yet to join the online community,” said Erica Papillion, LRA Social Media Director. “With a few committed minutes a day, restaurants could expand their brand’s reach to potential customers.”

ProStart Mentor Profile: Tom Pyburn

Tom Pyburn

Human Resources Manager
Emeril’s Home Base 

Armed with more than 25 years of restaurant management and human resource experience, Tom Pyburn has an extensive repertoire of information he brings to John Ehret High School’s ProStart program.

While studying at Loyola University, Tom Pyburn began gathering his industry experience as a server at Commander’s Palace and then Mr. B’s. Upon receiving his undergraduate degree in Communications, he worked in restaurants such as the Broadway Café and Bouligny honing his restaurant management skills.

Now, years later with an MBA in Management from LoyolaChicago, he’s worked in Human Resources for the Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, Acme Oyster House and for the last six years, for Emeril’s Home Base in New Orleans.

He’s got a history too of working with high school-aged students. For the past four years, he and his fellow Society of Human Resources members have held sessions at the St. Charles Satellite Center on the topics of cover letters, resumes and conducting interviews.

“Many of these students have not had their first jobs yet,” said Pyburn. “The sessions provide an introduction to the process and the do’s and don’ts of the applying and interviewing for a position.”

Are your profits going in the trash?

There are a number of ways that restaurant profits simply walk out of the door. They include but aren’t limited to servers under ringing sales, taking home supplies or product or not charging their friend’s beverages or appetizers. What about product that’s going directly in the garbage at prep or being returned because of over portioning?  

According to Restaurantowner.com, a myth of restaurant profitability is “Using Trash Cans in the Kitchen are a Good Way to Dispose of Trim and Waste.”  Often referred to as “black holes of profitability” any restaurant, including yours, is at risk for losing good, usable food products to kitchen trash cans. If there’s a training gap or people are careless when slicing, dicing or prepping anything in your kitchen, good, usable (and expensive) products can end up in the dumpster.

Say someone is preparing a piece of fish or meat and inadvertently makes a slice in the wrong place. Might they be tempted to hide their mistake in the trash? You bet! It could be happening all the time unless you're doing something to control it.

I know of operators who have removed all the trash cans in their kitchens and replaced them with clear plastic food boxes. They start by assigning a food box to each prep cook with their name on it. The prep cooks are instructed to place all of their scraps, trimmings and waste into their own food box.

At the end of each shift, a manager briefly inspects the contents of each employee's food box. If good, usable product is discovered, it's immediately brought to the employee's attention and, if necessary, they receive some on-the-spot training.

As they say, "don't expect what you don't inspect." Ditching your kitchen garbage cans for plastic food boxes, even for a just week or two, will give you the perfect opportunity to find out exactly what's leaving your kitchen and ending up in the dumpster.

Are you throwing away your profits?