Fractured Wrist, Four Sutures, and a 'Vacation'

Recordability under §1904.7 turns on death, days away, restricted work or transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness.

Case 1 - wrist fracture: recordable. A fracture is explicitly recordable. Column K (days away) = 3. When he returns to light duty, move to Column L (restricted/transfer) and count the restricted days - but do not count the same day twice. Count calendar days, beginning the day after the injury, and you may stop counting once the combined total reaches 180 calendar days.

Case 2 - four sutures: recordable. Sutures are medical treatment, not first aid. No days away, no restriction, so record it in the other recordable cases column (J).

Case 3 - back strain with two weeks off: recordable. The label matters, not the name: days the employee would have worked but could not are days away regardless of whether they are called vacation, and the case must be entered with days away counted.

Case 4 - overnight hospitalization: recordable, and it also triggers a reporting duty (next task).

Each entry is due within 7 calendar days of receiving the information (§1904.29(b)(3)). Failure to enter known cases and mislabeling days away are recordkeeping violations in their own right.

Reporting (§1904.39).

• Fatality - report to OSHA within 8 hours.
• In-patient hospitalization for treatment (not just observation/ER visit) - report within 24 hours. The roofer's overnight stay must be reported to OSHA within 24 hours of the employer learning of it, by phone to the nearest area office or through OSHA's online reporting portal.
• Amputation or loss of an eye - 24 hours.

Annual summary (§1904.32).

• The OSHA 300A must be certified by a company executive - an owner, the CEO, CFO, a vice president, or the highest-ranking company official at the establishment. A payroll clerk's signature is not valid certification.
• It must be posted from February 1 through April 30 - that part was done correctly.
• Records must be retained for five years and updated as later information arrives.

Electronic submission (§1904.41). With 150–190 employees in construction (NAICS 236/237/238), the establishment is in a designated industry with 20–249 employees and must electronically submit 300A data by March 2 each year. The 300 and 301 forms are not submitted at this size.

Both practices are unlawful and both are self-defeating.

Incentives. §1904.35(b)(1) prohibits an employer from using any practice that discourages or disincentivizes an employee from reporting an injury or illness, and from retaliating against an employee for reporting. A cash prize conditioned on no reported injuries is the textbook violation: it puts the crew's money in direct conflict with an individual's decision to report. It also creates a recordkeeping accuracy problem, because an unreported case is an unlogged case.

A lawful program rewards leading indicators - completed inspections, corrected hazards, housekeeping scores - or rewards reporting itself. It never pays for silence.

'Call it vacation.' This is instruction to misclassify a recordable case, and it is worse than a paperwork error: it is knowing falsification, which exposes the company to a recordkeeping citation, potential false-statement liability, and an anti-retaliation claim. Employees must not be pressured to accept leave designations that hide an injury.

What to do: end the bingo program or redesign it around leading indicators, retrain supervisors that no one may be discouraged from reporting, add the June strain to the log, audit prior years for similar patterns, and document the corrective action. If the front-line safety person cannot get the change made, that is a reportable escalation, not a preference.