CAL/OSHA Posting Change Not Mandatory

The GovDocs Compliance Research Department confirmed with CAL/OSHA that recent changes to the California Safety & Health Protection on the Job notice are not mandatory, but an imminent change to a different posting will be mandatory.

What Changed on the California Safety & Health Protection on the Job?

The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) made three changes to the California Safety & Health Protection on the Job notice:

• Included “illness” as a trigger for employers to report workplace incidents to Cal/OSHA in addition to serious injury and fatality on the job.
• Removed the Headquarters listing from the CAL/OSHA Consultation Service contact list.
• Updated the posting year to 2015.

Which California Posting Change Will Be Mandatory Next?

CAL/OSHA informed GovDocs that a mandatory change to the Notice to Employees – Injuries Caused By Work will be released in December.

“This is a long-awaited change to the Worker Compensation regulations. An updated version of the posting, which appears to be a final version, has been posted, but we are actively reviewing to ensure that this is the final version.”

Anne Jakala, Esq.,
Director of GovDocs Compliance Research

What’s the Difference Between Mandatory and Non-Mandatory Posting Changes?

Put simply, a mandatory labor law posting change is one that an agency requires employers to replace previous versions of the notice and display the most current one.

To be clear: not all changes to a mandatory posting are considered mandatory changes. In other words, sometimes an agency may make a change to a mandatory posting that does not require an employer to remove the previous posting and display the newest one. These are considered recommended but non-mandatory changes.

State and federal agencies can change their labor law regulations at any time – and often do so without notifying businesses. On average, more than 200 labor law changes occur each year, with approximately only 40% requiring employers to display new posters. Changes to a posting can take many forms, from revised content to formatting modifications, and not every change requires employers to post updated state or federal posters.

An agency may make what they consider non-mandatory changes, such as updating contact information on the posting or including the name of a newly elected governor. Other times, an agency may substantially revise the content of their posting, like when a state raises its minimum wage rate.

GovDocs actively monitors all changes from more than 500 state and federal agencies in order to provide complete and accurate posters that keep our customers compliant. As in the case of the CAL/OSHA example, the GovDocs Compliance Research Department actively follows up with issuing agencies to determine which changes are considered mandatory so that our state and federal posters are updated with all mandatory changes and any non-mandatory changes that occurred prior to a mandatory update.