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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 16 / Friday, January 24, 2014 / Notices

www.regulations.gov Web site to submit
comments and access the docket is
available at the Web site’s ‘‘User Tips’’
link. Contact the OSHA Docket Office
for information about materials not
available from this Web site and for
assistance in using the Internet to locate
docket submissions.
V. Authority and Signature
David Michaels, Ph.D., MPH,
Assistant Secretary of Labor for
Occupational Safety and Health,
directed the preparation of this notice.
The authority for this notice is the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44
U.S.C. 3506 et seq.) and Secretary of
Labor’s Order No. 1–2012 (77 FR 3912).
Signed at Washington, DC, on January 17,
2014.
David Michaels,
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational
Safety and Health.
[FR Doc. 2014–01323 Filed 1–23–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510–26–P

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration
[Docket No. OSHA–2010–0064]

OSHA–7 Form (‘‘Notice of Alleged
Safety and Health Hazard’’); Extension
of the Office of Management and
Budget’s Approval of Information
Collection (Paperwork) Requirements
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), Labor.
ACTION: Request for public comments.
AGENCY:

OSHA solicits public
comments concerning its proposal to
extend the Office of Management and
Budget’s (OMB) approval of the
information collection requirements
specified in the OSHA–7 Form.
DATES: Comments must be submitted
(postmarked, sent or received) by March
25, 2014.
ADDRESSES: Electronically: You may
submit comments and attachments
electronically at http://
www.regulations.gov, which is the
Federal eRulemaking Portal. Follow the
instructions online for submitting
comments.
Facsimile: If your comments,
including attachments, are not longer
than 10 pages you may fax them to the
OSHA Docket Office at (202) 693–1648.
Mail, hand delivery, express mail,
messenger, or courier service: When
using this method, you must submit a
copy of your comments and attachments
to the OSHA Docket Office, Docket No.

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SUMMARY:

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OSHA–2010–0064, U.S. Department of
Labor, Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, Room N–2625, 200
Constitution Avenue NW., Washington,
DC 20210. Deliveries (hand, express
mail, messenger, and courier service)
are accepted during the Department of
Labor’s and Docket Office’s normal
business hours, 8:15 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.,
ET.
Instructions: All submissions must
include the Agency name and the OSHA
docket number (OSHA–2010–0064) for
the Information Collection Request
(ICR). All comments, including any
personal information you provide, are
placed in the public docket without
change, and may be made available
online at http://www.regulations.gov.
For further information on submitting
comments see the ‘‘Public
Participation’’ heading in the section of
this notice titled SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION.
Docket: To read or download
comments or other materials in the
docket, go to http://regulations.gov or
the OSHA Docket Office at the address
above. All documents in the docket
(including this Federal Register notice)
are listed in the http://
www.regulations.gov index; however,
some information (e.g., copyrighted
material) is not publically available to
read or download from the Web site. All
submissions, including copyrighted
material, are available for inspection
and copying at the OSHA Docket Office.
You may contact Theda Kenney at the
address below to obtain a copy of the
ICR.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Todd Owen or Theda Kenney,
Directorate of Standards and Guidance,
OSHA, U.S. Department of Labor, Room
N–3909, 200 Constitution Avenue NW.,
Washington, DC 20210; telephone (202)
693–2222.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The Department of Labor, as part of its
continuing effort to reduce paperwork
and respondent (i.e., workers filing
occupational safety or health
complaints) burden, conducts a
preclearance consultation program to
provide the public with an opportunity
to comment on proposed and
continuing information collection
requirements in accord with the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995
(PRA–95) (44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A)). This
program ensures that information is in
the desired format, reporting burden
(time and costs) is minimal, collection
instruments are clearly understood, and
OSHA’s estimate of the information

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collection burden is accurate. The
Occupational Safety and Health Act of
1970 (the OSH Act) (29 U.S.C. 651 et
seq.) authorizes information collection
by employers as necessary or
appropriate for enforcement of the OSH
Act or for developing information
regarding the causes and prevention of
occupational injuries, illnesses, and
accidents (29 U.S.C. 657). The OSH Act
also requires that OSHA obtain such
information with minimum burden
upon employers, especially those
operating small businesses, and to
reduce to the extent feasible
unnecessary duplication of efforts in
obtaining information (29 U.S.C. 657).
Under paragraphs (a) and (c) of 29
CFR 1903.11 (‘‘Complaints by
employees’’) workers and their
representatives may notify the OSHA
area director or an OSHA compliance
officer of safety and health hazards
regulated by the Agency that they
believe exist in their workplaces at any
time. These provisions state further that
this notification must be in writing and
‘‘shall set forth with reasonable
particularity the grounds for the notice,
and shall be signed by the employee or
representative of the employee.’’
In addition to providing specific
hazard information to the Agency,
paragraph (a) permits workers/worker
representatives to request an inspection
of the workplace. Paragraph (c) also
addresses situations in which workers/
worker representatives may provide the
information directly to the OSHA
compliance officer during an inspection.
An employer’s former workers may also
submit complaints to the Agency.
To address the requirements of
paragraphs (a) and (c), especially the
requirement that the information be in
writing, the Agency developed the
OSHA–7 Form; this form standardized
and simplified the hazard reporting
process. For paragraph (a), they may
complete an OSHA–7 Form obtained
from the Agency’s Web site and then
send it to OSHA online, or deliver a
hardcopy of the form to the OSHA area
office by mail or facsimile, or by hand.
They may also write a letter containing
the information and hand deliver it to
the area office, or send it by mail or
facsimile. In addition, they may provide
the information orally to the OSHA area
office or another party (e.g., a federal
safety and health committee for federal
workers), in which case the area office
or other party completes the hard copy
version of the form. For the typical
situation addressed by paragraph (c), a
worker/worker representative informs
an OSHA compliance officer orally of
the alleged hazard during an inspection,
and the compliance officer then

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Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 16 / Friday, January 24, 2014 / Notices
completes the hard copy version of the
OSHA–7 Form; occasionally, the
worker/worker representative provides
the compliance officer with the
information on the hard copy version of
the OSHA–7 Form.
The information on the hard copy
version of the OSHA–7 Form includes
information about the employer and
alleged hazards, including: the
establishment’s name; the site’s address
and telephone and facsimile numbers;
the name and telephone number of the
management official; the type of
business; a description and the specific
location of the hazards, including the
approximate number of workers
exposed or threatened by the hazards;
and whether or not the worker/worker
representative informed another
government agency about the hazards
(and the name of the agency if so
informed).
Additional information on the hard
copy version of the form concerns the
complainant including: whether or not
the complaintant is a worker or a worker
representative, or for information
provided orally, a member of a federal
safety and health committee or another
party (with space to specify the party);
the complainant’s name, telephone
number, and address; and the
complainant’s signature attesting that
they believe a violation of an OSHA
standard exists at the named
establishment; and the date of the
signature. A worker representative must
also provide the name of the
organization they represent and their
title.
The information contained in the
online version of the OSHA–7 Form is
similar to the hard copy version.
However, the online version requests
the complainant’s email address, and
does not ask for the site’s facsimile
number or the complainant’s signature
and signature date.
The Agency uses the information
collected on the OSHA–7 Form to
determine whether reasonable grounds
exist to conduct an inspection of the
workplace. The description of the
hazards, including the number of
exposed workers, allows the Agency to
assess the severity of the hazards and
the need to expedite the inspection. The
completed form also provides the
employer with notice of the complaint
and may serve as the basis for obtaining
a search warrant if the employer denies
the Agency access to the workplace.
II. Special Issues for Comment
OSHA has a particular interest in
comments on the following issues:
• Whether the proposed information
collection requirements are necessary

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for proper performance of the Agency’s
functions, including whether the
information is useful;
• The accuracy of OSHA’s estimate of
the burden (time and costs) of the
information collection requirements,
including the validity of the
methodology and assumptions used;
• The quality, utility, and clarity of
the information collected; and
• Ways to minimize the burden on
employers who must comply; for
example, by using automated or other
technological information collection
and transmission techniques.
III. Proposed Actions
OSHA is requesting that OMB extend
its approval of the information
collection requirements relating to the
OSHA–7 Form. The Agency is
requesting an increase in burden hours
from 13,414 to 13,659 (a total increase
of 245 burden hours). The Agency will
summarize the comments submitted in
response to this notice and will include
this summary in the request to OMB to
extend the approval of the information
collection requirements.
Type of Review: Extension of a
currently approved collection.
Title: Notice of Alleged Safety and
Health Hazards, OSHA–7 Form.
OMB Control Number: 1218–0064.
Affected Public: Individuals or
households.
Number of Responses: 50,641.
Frequency of Responses: On occasion.
Average Time per Response: Varies
from 15 minutes (.25 hour) to
communicate the required information
orally to the Agency to 25 minutes (.42
hour) to provide the information in
writing and send it to OSHA.
Estimated Total Burden Hours:
13,659.
Estimated Cost (Operation and
Maintenance): $532
IV. Public Participation—Submission of
Comments on this Notice and Internet
Access to Comments and Submissions
You may submit comments in
response to this document as follows:
(1) electronically at http://
regulations.gov, which is the Federal
eRulemaking Portal; (2) by facsimile
(fax); or (3) by hard copy. All comments,
attachments, and other materials must
identify the Agency name and the
OSHA docket number for the ICR
(Docket No. OSHA–2010–0064). You
may supplement electronic submissions
by uploading document files
electronically. If you wish to mail
additional materials in reference to an
electronic or facsimile submission, you
must submit them to the OSHA Docket
Office (see the section of this notice

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titled ADDRESSES). The additional
materials must clearly identify your
electronic comments by your name,
date, and the docket number so the
Agency can attach them to your
comments.
Because of security procedures, the
use of regular mail may cause a
significant delay in the receipt of
comments. For information about
security procedures concerning the
delivery of materials by hand, express
delivery, messenger, or courier service,
please contact the OSHA Docket Office
at (202) 693–2350, (TTY (877) 889–
5627).
Comments and submissions are
posted without change at http://
www.regulations.gov. Therefore, OSHA
cautions commenters about submitting
personal information such as social
security numbers and date of birth.
Although all submissions are listed in
the http://www.regulations.gov index,
some information (e.g., copyrighted
material) is not publically available to
read or download from this Web site.
All submissions, including copyrighted
material, are available for inspection
and copying at the OSHA Docket Office.
Information on using the http://
www.regulations.gov Web site to submit
comments and access the docket is
available at the Web site’s ‘‘User Tips’’
link. Contact the OSHA Docket Office
for information about materials not
available from the Web site, and for
assistance in using the Internet to locate
docket submissions.
V. Authority and Signature
David Michaels, Ph.D., MPH,
Assistant Secretary of Labor for
Occupational Safety and Health,
directed the preparation of this notice.
The authority for this notice is the
paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44
U.S.C. 3506 et seq.) and Secretary of
Labor’s Order No. 1–2012 (77 FR 3912,
January 25, 2012).
Signed at Washington, DC, on January 17,
2014.
David Michaels,
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational
Safety and Health.
[FR Doc. 2014–01357 Filed 1–23–14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510–26–P

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