11.4 OSHA 29 CFR Part 1904: Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses

Why Part 1904 Is the Only OSHA Reference You Need

Every TDLR Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (ACR) contractor exam is open book, and the approved reference list names exactly one OSHA document: 29 CFR Part 1904, Recording and Reporting Occupational Injuries and Illnesses. Fall protection, ladders, and personal protective equipment live in 29 CFR Parts 1926 and 1910 — indispensable on a jobsite, but not the book on your table at the test center. Safety-area items that quote an OSHA rule come from Part 1904, so learn its structure well enough to open to the right section in seconds.

Texas has no OSHA-approved State Plan for private-sector employers, so federal OSHA enforces the Occupational Safety and Health Act directly at an ACR contractor's shop and every jobsite. There is no state variant to reconcile: Part 1904 as printed in the Code of Federal Regulations is the operative rule.

Who Must Keep Records: Two Partial Exemptions

Part 1904 relieves two groups of routine recordkeeping, and both exemptions are partial.

Size exemption — 1904.1. If your company had 10 or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year, you do not have to keep the OSHA injury and illness records. The count is company-wide rather than per establishment, and it is a peak count: an eleventh employee hired for one week in July defeats the exemption for the following year.

Industry exemption — 1904.2. An establishment classified in a low-hazard industry listed in Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 1904 is likewise relieved of routine recordkeeping. That appendix covers retail, finance, insurance, real estate, professional offices, and similar service industries; the lowest North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code on it is 4412. No construction code appears anywhere in Appendix A. NAICS 238220, Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors, is not on the list — so a Texas ACR contractor with more than 10 employees keeps the log, full stop.

What neither exemption excuses. A partially exempt employer must still:

• report fatalities and severe outcomes under 1904.39;
• begin keeping records if OSHA notifies you in writing under 1904.41;
• complete and return a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey if the BLS notifies you under 1904.42.

Separately, a construction establishment (NAICS 23) with 20–249 employees that is required to keep records must electronically submit its Form 300A data to OSHA by March 2 of the following year under 1904.41; establishments with 250 or more employees submit the same summary.

The Recording Decision Tree

Section 1904.4(a) sets three tests, all of which must be satisfied: a case goes on the log when it is work-related, a new case, and meets one or more of the general recording criteria in 1904.7 — or a special criterion in 1904.8 through 1904.12 covering needlestick and sharps injuries, tuberculosis, standard threshold shifts in hearing, medical removal, and musculoskeletal disorders.

Work-related (1904.5(a)) means an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the condition, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing injury or illness. That presumption is deliberately broad, and 1904.5(b)(2) then carves out nine narrow exceptions: (i) the person was present as a member of the general public; (ii) symptoms merely surface at work but result solely from a non-work event; (iii) voluntary wellness programs, blood donation, or recreational activities; (iv) eating, drinking, or preparing personal food or drink; (v) personal tasks outside assigned working hours; (vi) personal grooming, self-medication for a non-work condition, or intentionally self-inflicted injury; (vii) a motor vehicle accident in a company parking lot or on a company access road while commuting; (viii) the common cold or flu; (ix) mental illness, unless a physician or other licensed health care professional gives an opinion that it is work-related.

New case (1904.6) means the employee has not previously experienced a recorded case of the same injury or illness, or had recovered completely from an earlier case before signs or symptoms returned.

General recording criteria (1904.7(a)) are death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional.

Medical Treatment Beyond First Aid Is a Closed List

The trap in 1904.7 is the phrase medical treatment beyond first aid, because 1904.7(b)(5)(ii) supplies a closed list of 14 treatments that count as first aid regardless of who administers them or how often they are repeated. On the list means first aid; off the list means medical treatment, and the case is recordable once work-relatedness and new-case status are established.

The list is: (A) non-prescription medication at non-prescription strength; (B) tetanus immunizations; (C) cleaning, flushing, or soaking surface wounds; (D) wound coverings such as bandages, gauze pads, or butterfly bandages and Steri-Strips; (E) hot or cold therapy; (F) non-rigid means of support such as elastic bandages or back belts; (G) temporary immobilization used while transporting an accident victim; (H) drilling a fingernail or toenail, or draining fluid from a blister; (I) eye patches; (J) removing foreign bodies from the eye using only irrigation or a cotton swab; (K) removing splinters or foreign material from areas other than the eye by irrigation, tweezers, cotton swabs, or other simple means; (L) finger guards; (M) massage; (N) drinking fluids for relief of heat stress.

Counting Days, the Three Forms, and Posting

Counting days (1904.7(b)(3)–(4)). Begin counting the day after the injury occurred or the illness began; the day of injury is never counted. Include weekends, holidays, and other days the employee was not scheduled to work, if he would have been unable to work them. You may cap the total at 180 calendar days of days away, days restricted, or the two combined, and stop counting there. Restricted work exists when you keep the employee from performing one or more routine functions of the job or from working the full workday — a technician told "ground units only, no ladder or rooftop work" is on restricted duty, and the case is recordable.

The three forms (1904.29(a)). OSHA Form 300, the Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses; OSHA Form 300A, the Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses; and OSHA Form 301, the Injury and Illness Incident Report. Equivalent forms — many workers' compensation first-report forms qualify — are acceptable if they carry the same information and are as readable and understandable.

Only a company executive may certify the 300A: a sole proprietor or partner, a corporate officer, the highest-ranking company official working at the establishment, or that person's immediate supervisor. A field supervisor or office manager cannot sign it.

Privacy concern cases (1904.29(b)(6)–(9)). For an injury to an intimate body part or the reproductive system, an injury from sexual assault, a mental illness, HIV, hepatitis or tuberculosis, a needlestick or sharps injury contaminated by another person's blood, or any illness the employee asks you to keep confidential, enter "Privacy Case" in place of the name and keep a separate confidential list linking the case number to the employee.

Reporting, Employee Rights, and Who Owns the Record

Reporting under 1904.39 is separate from recording and applies to every employer, including the partially exempt ones. Report a work-related fatality within 8 hours if the death occurred within 30 days of the incident; report an in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours if the outcome occurred within 24 hours of the incident. Three methods are accepted: telephone or appear in person at the nearest OSHA Area Office, call the toll-free line 1-800-321-OSHA (1-800-321-6742), or use the electronic reporting application on OSHA's public website.

Employee involvement (1904.35). You must inform each employee how to report a work-related injury or illness and must establish a reasonable reporting procedure — one that would not deter or discourage a reasonable employee from reporting accurately. Blanket post-incident discipline and rate-based safety incentive schemes that penalize reporting run afoul of this rule, and you may not discharge or discriminate against an employee for reporting. Employees, former employees, and their personal representatives are entitled to a copy of the 300 Log, with names intact except for privacy cases, and to their own Form 301, by the end of the next business day; an authorized employee representative receives redacted 301 information within 7 calendar days.

Covered employees (1904.31). Record cases for everyone on your payroll, hourly or salaried, full-time or seasonal, plus any temporary, leased, or staffing-agency worker you supervise on a day-to-day basis. Supervision, not the paycheck, decides whose log the case lands on, and each case is recorded only once. On a multi-employer job, a subcontractor's technician working under his own foreman stays on the subcontractor's log. Sole proprietors and partners are not employees.