1904.35(b)(2) Do I Have to Give My Employees and Their Representatives Access to the OSHA Injury and Illness Records?

Yes, your employees, former employees, their personal representatives, and their authorized employee representatives have the right to access the OSHA injury and illness records, with some limitations, as discussed below.

An authorized employee representative is an authorized collective bargaining agent of employees.

When an employee, former employee, personal representative, or authorized employee representative asks for copies of your current or stored OSHA 300 Log(s) for an establishment the employee or former employee has worked in, you must give the requester a copy of the relevant OSHA 300 Log(s) by the end of the next business day.

No, you must leave the names on the 300 Log. However, to protect the privacy of injured and ill employees, you may not record the employee's name on the OSHA 300 Log for certain "privacy concern cases," as specified in § 1904.29(b)(6) through (9).

When an employee, former employee, or personal representative asks for a copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report describing an injury or illness to that employee or former employee, you must give the requester a copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report containing that information by the end of the next business day.

When an authorized employee representative asks for copies of the OSHA 301 Incident Reports for an establishment where the agent represents employees under a collective bargaining agreement, you must give copies of those forms to the authorized employee representative within 7 calendar days. You are only required to give the authorized employee representative information from the OSHA 301 Incident Report section titled "Tell us about the case." You must remove all other information from the copy of the OSHA 301 Incident Report or the equivalent substitute form that you give to the authorized employee representative.

No, you may not charge for these copies the first time they are provided. However, if one of the designated persons asks for additional copies, you may assess a reasonable charge for retrieving and copying the records."

[66 FR 6132, Jan. 19, 2001; 81 FR 29691-29692, May 12, 2016; 81 FR 31854-31855, May 20, 2016; 81 FR 91810 Dec 19, 2016; 82 FR 20549 May 3, 2017]

A personal representative is:

Any person that the employee or former employee designates as such, in writing; or

The legal representative of a deceased or legally incapacitated employee or former employee.