OSHA chief Charles Jeffress tells Industrial Safety & Hygiene News that his agency won’t be able to publish final requirements that make changes to how employers record job-related injuries and illnesses in time for the rules to take effect in 2001.

“We will get it (the new recordkeeping standard) out this year, but probably later in the year, and it will go into effect in 2002,” Jeffress told ISHN at a meeting held on June 12th in New York City sponsored by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and the New York State AFL-CIO.

OSHA had planned to issue new recordkeeping rules by July, giving employers six months lead-time before the rules were to take effect January 1, 2001. Now OSHA seems intent on timing the release of recordkeeping rules to its ergonomics standards-setting. The connection: recordkeeping rules define how injuries, including musculoskeletal disorders, are to be documented. The ergo standard is triggered by a recordable injury. OSHA wants more time to study the definition and the ergo trigger.