This guide is general legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney–client relationship. Rules change and vary by state — verify current requirements with official sources or a licensed attorney.
Workplace safety law in the United States rests on a short, sweeping sentence. Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act — the General Duty Clause — requires every covered employer to furnish a workplace "free from recognized hazards" that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Everything else, from fall protection standards to the injury log in the break room, builds outward from that duty.
For most employers the practical obligations fall into four buckets: comply with the specific standards for your industry, record and report injuries correctly, cooperate with inspections, and never retaliate against a worker who raises a safety concern. Each has its own rules and its own deadlines.
Key takeaways
- The General Duty Clause, § 5(a)(1), fills the gap where no specific standard addresses a recognized hazard; it is not a catch-all for every unsafe condition.
- Employers with more than 10 employees, outside partially exempt industries, must maintain OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301.
- Work-related fatalities must be reported to OSHA within 8 hours; in-patient hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye within 24 hours.
- An employer generally has 15 working days from receipt of a citation and proposed penalty to file a notice of contest — miss it and the citation becomes a final order.
- Roughly half the states run their own OSHA-approved State Plans, which must be at least as effective as federal OSHA and are often stricter.
Who is covered, and by whom
Federal OSHA reaches most private-sector employers and their workers. Self-employed individuals, immediate family members of farm employers, and hazards regulated by another federal agency (mine safety, certain transport sectors) fall outside its reach. Public-sector workers are covered only in states that operate an approved State Plan extending coverage to state and local government.
That State Plan structure matters more than most employers expect. A State Plan can adopt standards federal OSHA has not, set its own reporting mechanics, and run its own inspection and appeal system. An employer operating in several states cannot assume one compliance manual fits all of them — the same problem that arises with wages and leave for distributed teams, discussed in our guide to remote work across state lines.
The General Duty Clause and its limits
Because § 5(a)(1) sounds unlimited, it is worth knowing how narrowly it is actually applied. To sustain a general duty citation, OSHA generally must establish four things: a hazard existed in the workplace; the hazard was recognized, either by the employer or by the industry; the hazard was causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm; and a feasible means of abatement existed that would materially reduce the hazard.
The fourth element does the most work. Identifying a real danger is not enough — the agency has to point to something the employer could actually have done. And where a specific standard already governs the hazard, that standard applies instead; the General Duty Clause is a gap-filler, not an overlay.
Practical note: Employers also owe duties under § 5(a)(2) to comply with specific promulgated standards, and workers owe a statutory duty to follow rules and use protective equipment. Only employers, however, face citations and penalties.
Injury and illness recordkeeping
The recordkeeping system described on OSHA's recordkeeping page runs on three forms that do different jobs:
| Form | Name | Function |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses | Running log of each recordable case with classification, job title, and days away or restricted |
| 300A | Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses | Annual totals, certified by a company executive and posted where employees can see it |
| 301 | Injury and Illness Incident Report | Case-level detail for each entry on the 300 log |
Employers with more than 10 employees at any point in the prior calendar year must keep these records unless their industry is on the partially exempt list. "Partially exempt" is not fully exempt: even those employers must still report severe incidents and respond to a written request from OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Deciding what is recordable
A case goes on the log when it is work-related, is a new case, and involves death, days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant diagnosis by a licensed health care professional. The line between "first aid" and "medical treatment" is defined by regulation and is where most recordkeeping errors live — a specific list of treatments counts as first aid regardless of who administers them.
Posting and electronic submission
The annual Form 300A summary is posted in the workplace from February 1 through April 30 of the following year. Records are retained for five years beyond the year they cover. Establishments meeting size and industry criteria must also submit data electronically to OSHA through the Injury Tracking Application during the annual window that opens January 2 and closes March 2.
Reporting severe incidents
Recording and reporting are separate obligations. Every employer — including partially exempt ones — must contact OSHA directly for severe events:
- Within 8 hours: any work-related fatality.
- Within 24 hours: any work-related in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye.
Reports go by telephone to the nearest area office, to the agency's 24-hour hotline, or through the online reporting form. The clock runs from when the employer learns of the event, not from the event itself, which is why incident escalation procedures matter as much as the underlying safety program.
Inspections, citations, and what follows
- Trigger. Inspections arise from imminent danger reports, severe injury reports, worker complaints, referrals, programmed emphasis programs, and follow-ups on prior citations. OSHA prioritizes them roughly in that order.
- Opening conference. The compliance officer presents credentials and explains the scope. Employers may ask for a warrant; doing so is lawful but changes the tone and rarely stops the inspection.
- Walkaround. A representative of the employer and a representative of employees may accompany the officer. Documents, photographs, measurements, and private employee interviews are all standard.
- Closing conference. The officer discusses apparent violations. Citations are not issued on the spot; they come later in writing.
- Citation and penalty. Violations are classified — other-than-serious, serious, willful, repeated, and failure to abate — with penalty ranges set by statute and adjusted annually for inflation. Employers must post each citation at or near the location of the alleged violation until abated or for three working days, whichever is longer.
- Informal conference or contest. An informal conference with the area director can produce a settlement. Separately, a written notice of contest filed within 15 working days sends the matter to the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Without a timely contest, the citation becomes a final, unreviewable order.
Worker rights and retaliation
Workers may request an inspection, speak privately with the compliance officer, review the injury logs for their establishment, and receive information about hazards and exposure records. Section 11(c) makes it unlawful to fire, demote, or otherwise punish an employee for exercising those rights.
The catch is timing. A retaliation complaint under § 11(c) generally must reach OSHA within 30 days of the adverse action — far shorter than most employment deadlines, and short enough that internal grievance processes routinely outlast it. Other whistleblower statutes OSHA administers carry different windows, some considerably longer.
Safety retaliation often overlaps with other claims. The same firing may support a discrimination or retaliation charge through the EEOC charge process, a state workers' compensation retaliation claim tied to a filed injury claim, and a wrongful-discharge theory reviewed alongside any offered release in our guide to termination and severance agreements.
Frequently asked questions
Does recording an injury on the 300 log admit fault?
No. The regulations state plainly that recording a case does not mean the employer or employee was at fault, that an OSHA standard was violated, or that the employee is eligible for workers' compensation. Recordability and compensability are different tests applied by different systems.
Can an employee refuse to do dangerous work?
Only in narrow circumstances. Refusal is protected where the employee genuinely believes there is an imminent risk of death or serious injury, there is no reasonable alternative, there was insufficient time to get the hazard corrected through normal channels, and the employee asked the employer to fix it and was refused.
How long should safety records be kept?
Injury and illness records are kept for five years after the covered year. Other records run much longer — exposure monitoring and medical surveillance records under health standards are commonly retained for the duration of employment plus 30 years. Check the specific standard that applies to your hazard.
Does a small employer escape OSHA entirely?
No. Employers with 10 or fewer employees are relieved of routine injury log maintenance, not of the duty to provide a safe workplace, comply with standards, report fatalities and severe injuries, or refrain from retaliation. Small size also does not exempt an employer from an inspection.
Building a defensible programme
The employers that fare best in inspections are rarely the ones with the thickest binders. They are the ones that can show a hazard assessment tied to their actual operations, training records in the language workers speak, documented corrective action when someone raised a concern, and an injury log that reconciles with their incident reports and workers' compensation filings.
Start by confirming whether you are in a State Plan jurisdiction, then verify your recordkeeping status and reporting escalation path against the current guidance on OSHA's site. Injuries that generate an OSHA record usually generate an insurance claim too — see our companion guide to the workers' compensation claims process, and browse the employment law hub for related workplace duties. This article is general information, not legal advice.
