The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to conduct stakeholder meetings and solicit written comments on its current injury and illness recordkeeping collection methods in preparation for regulatory action to modernize the system. In a news release, OSHA’s Assistant Secretary of Labor David Michaels stated that the public meetings and written input “will help give OSHA direction to develop innovative ideas that will allow employers, workers and researchers to participate in improving occupational safety and health through the use of occupational injury and illness data.” As discussed in a summary of OSHA’s intent published in the Federal Register, these efforts will also support President Obama's Open Government initiative by increasing the ability of the public to easily find, download, and use the resulting dataset generated and held by the federal government.

The stakeholder meetings will be conducted at the following times and locations:

• May 25, 2010, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the U.S. Department of Labor, Frances Perkins Building, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210.
• June 3, 2010, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the OSHA Training Institute, 2020 South Arlington Heights Rd., Arlington Heights, IL 60005.

Those seeking to participate in the meetings must register online or send a request to: Eastern Research Group Inc., 110 Hartwell Ave., Lexington, MA 02421; Attention OSHA Data Collection Process Stakeholder Meeting Registration. Requests can also be faxed to: (781) 674-2906.

Interested parties who cannot attend the meetings are encouraged to submit written comments by June 18, 2010. Such comments must be identified by Docket No. OSHA-2010-0024, and sent to: OSHA Docket Office, Docket No. OSHA-2010-0024, U.S. Department of Labor, Room N-2625, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20210. Alternatively, comments may be submitted through the federal eRulemaking portal: http://www.regulations.gov, or, if 10 pages or fewer, via facsimile to the OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693-1648.

More information on the stakeholder meetings, in addition to topics and questions that will be the focus of these meetings, can be found here.

Photo credit:   Alex Nikada