Governor Brown has signed AB 2334 into law. The new law requires that, as part of occupational injury and illness reporting, employers additionally file specified injury and illness forms electronically with Cal/OSHA no later than February 1 of each year.

And requires Cal/OSHA to develop a searchable database for one of those forms relating to summary information on its web site by a date specified and further requires Cal/OSHA to post those forms on the database within 90 days of receipt. “While posting of injury information at each worksite is important, specific workplace injury and illness information is not accessible to the public and prospective employees in an easily accessible database on the Internet.”

The new law seems to have been triggered by federal initiatives to reduce employer reporting requirements.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) adopted the Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses rule in 2016. This rule requires electronic submission of certain occupational injury and illness reports by covered employers with at least 250 employees and by smaller employers in high-risk industries. In the fall of 2017,

However, OSHA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to potentially relax these workplace injury and illness reporting requirements.

In response to the federal initiative to reduce employer reporting requirements, California decided to pass a new law that went the other way – Increase employer reporting requirements.

Along the way, the bill was amended in the senate to authorize the director of the DIR to publish information regarding the costs of administration, workers’ compensation benefit expenditures, and solvency and performance of public self-insured employers’ workers’ compensation programs.

As expected, support and opposition of AB 2334 polarized around the allegiance of advocacy groups. Labor Unions and employee groups were in favor, while employer groups were opposed.

In support, a coalition of labor organizations, including UNITE-HERE, AFL-CIO, states that “by making these annual summaries text-searchable, AB 2334 will simply improve public access to these important reports. We believe that spreading awareness can in turn only foster safer workplaces.”

The bill’s sponsor, California Professional Firefighters, contends that “firefighters and all workers in California will benefit from public access to workplace injury and illness data in a searchable database.”

It further claims that the “current system of posting Form 300A [the annual summary of injuries and illnesses] at the workplace benefits workers at the site or facility but does not provide an opportunity for review by the public. Reporting to Cal/OSHA will strengthen California’s access to data regarding workplace injuries, will help further drive data supported solutions to improve workplace safety and ensure California required reporting is in place if the U.S. Department of Labor relaxes federal reporting rules.”

In opposition, a group of employer organizations, including the California Chamber of Commerce, argues that the bill ‘seeks to publicly shame employers by disclosing for public review on a searchable website, each employer’s injury and illness records, that can be misconstrued and distorted in a manner that does not reflect employers’ commitment to the safety of their employees while providing no advancement of worker safety.”