Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

A memorandum recently released by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has clarified the agency’s position on whether safety incentive programs and post-accident drug testing would be considered retaliatory pursuant to its controversial recordkeeping rule published on May 12, 2016.  This rule prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who report work-related injuries or instituting procedures that could chill employees from reporting work-related injuries. In the accompanying interpretative documents, OSHA specifically identified workplace safety incentive programs and post-accident drug testing policies as procedures that were likely to deter employee reporting, and therefore would be subject to increased scrutiny by the agency.