OSHA fines over one-million dollars have become more common. But here’s one with a twist: It’s not for workplace hazards — it’s for recordkeeping violations.

OSHA has issued Goodman Manufacturing Co. 83 willful citations for failing to record and improperly recording work-related injuries and illnesses at the company’s Houston air conditioning cooling facility.

The proposed fines total $1.215 million.

OSHA received a complaint that Goodman wasn’t properly recording injuries.

An investigation showed the company had either not recorded or failed to properly record the nature and/or duration of 72% of employee injuries and illnesses from January 2008 to March 15, 2010.

OSHA categorized the recordkeeping citations as willful because the company was extremely knowledgeable about OSHA’s requirements but made many unsupportable decisions.

The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations to decide whether to contest the citations.

OSHA has implemented a National Emphasis Program (NEP) on Recordkeeping to assess the accuracy of injuries and illnesses recorded by employers. You can find out more about the NEP here (PDF).

The total fine is $75,000.

On Feb. 24, the whale, Tilikum, dragged trainer Dawn Brancheau under the water by grabbing her ponytail in front of about 50 spectators.

The autopsy report said Brancheau’s death was due to drowning and traumatic injuries.

OSHA says its investigation showed SeaWorld trainers had an extensive history of unexpected and potentially dangerous incidents involving killer whales at its various locations, including the one in Orlando.

The agency proposes that trainers not have physical contact with Tilikum unless they’re protected by a physical barrier.

OSHA issued:

• one willful citation for exposing employees to struck-by and drowning hazards when interacting with killer whales ($70,000)
• one serious citation for exposing employees to a fall hazard by failing to install a stairway railing system on a stage ($5,000), and
• one other-than-serious violation for failing to equip outdoor electrical receptacles in the stadium with weatherproof enclosures (no monetary penalty).

SeaWorld is contesting the citations and fines. In a statement, SeaWorld said it “disagrees with the unfounded allegations made by OSHA. OSHA’s allegations in this citation are unsupported by any evidence or precedent and reflect a fundamental lack of understanding of the safety requirements associated with marine mammal care.”

SeaWorld says it has conducted its own investigation into the fatality and has made changes to its safety program for the trainers who work with the whales.

What do you think? Should SeaWorld face an OSHA fine for the death of the trainer? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The first federal lawsuit has been filed in the case, and a lawyer says he waited for OSHA to act before going to court.

A February explosion at the Kleen Energy site in Middletown, CT, killed six workers and injured 50 others. OSHA hit 17 construction companies with a total of $16.6 million in fines for 371 safety violations.

Now an injured worker has filed a $6 million lawsuit in federal court alleging proper safety precautions weren’t taken at the site.

Nicholas Novik is suing the plant’s owner and three contractors, claiming they failed to properly ensure that gas at the plant wouldn’t ignite.

Novik’s injuries are reported to be “life-altering,” including trauma to his head and hearing loss.

Many other civil lawsuits have also been filed in state courts.

More than 35 residents whose homes were affected by the explosion have also filed lawsuits.

How does the OSHA fine connect to the lawsuits?

William Bloss, a lawyer for Novik, told The Record, “We were interested in seeing what OSHA’s conclusions were before filing. They obviously were very thorough with their investigation.”

OSHA has cited three construction companies and 14 subcontractors for 371 safety violations, totaling $16.6 million in penalties.

The Feb. 7, 2010, explosion at the Kleen Energy plant construction site was felt as far as 40 miles away.

OSHA officials say the construction companies cut corners to gain a $19 million incentive if they finished construction early on the plant. Published reports say in the weeks and months leading up to the explosion, employees were working seven-day, 84-hour weeks.

In late June, a U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigation revealed the explosion was most likely caused when natural gas was used during a routine gas purging procedure. The gas found an ignition source. Welding and other work was being performed nearby.

O&G Industries, the project’s general contractor, has been issued 119 willful and 17 serious citations with penalties totaling $8.3 million. Keystone Construction and Maintenance was issued 94 willful and 16 serious citations with fines of $6.6 million. Bluewater Energy Services, the commissioning and startup contractor for the plant, was issued 12 willful citations and 8 serious citations totaling $896,000. In addition, 14 subcontractors were also cited and fined.

O&G says it plans to contest the fines.

As a result of the explosion, OSHA will be issuing a warning letter to natural gas power plant operators regarding the dangerous practice of cleaning fuel gas piping using natural gas.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) have called on OSHA to demand stricter safety requirements in its negotiations with BP regarding $90 million in fines.

In a letter to OSHA, the senators ask the agency to require BP to:

• report any process safety incident that occurs at a site under its control, regardless of the number of workers injured or killed. Currently, companies must report incidents to OSHA only if one or more workers are killed or three or more are sent to hospitals.
• record all injuries and illnesses of workers at sites under its control, regardless of whether they are employed by BP or by a contractor. Companies don’t have to report contractor injuries or deaths unless they directly control the employee’s work.

All 15 workers who died in an explosion at BP’s Texas City, TX, refinery in 2005 were contractors.

BP faces $90 million in fines for 862 safety violations after a follow-up inspection at the Texas City refinery and another inspection at a BP refinery near Toledo, Ohio.

When a safety incident causes deaths or serious injuries, should OSHA be able to impose tough new requirements on the company? Let us know what you think by leaving a reply below.

OSHA has issued $257,500 in fines to Worthen Industries, a manufacturer of adhesives in Nashua, NH, and S.L. Chasse Welding and Fabrication, a contractor in Hudson, NH.

The bulk of the fines, $225,400, went to Worthen, including a single willful citation of $63,000.

The explosion occurred when flammable vapors ignited while Chasse workers were installing a new motor on a vessel used in the plant’s manufacturing process.

OSHA says Worthen hadn’t cleaned or vented the vessel thoroughly enough to make sure there were no flammable vapors inside before welding took place.

The explosion injured four workers. Two received serious burns and had to be flown to a regional burn center for treatment. Company officials say all four workers will or have recovered.

Worthen says it will contest the fines. Chasse says it will meet with OSHA officials and hasn’t decided how to respond.

Chasse was issued fines totaling $32,100 for inadequately training its employees to recognize possible chemical, fire, explosion or toxic release hazards and for allowing welding to be performed in a flammable atmosphere.

OSHA thought so. It issued Paramount Advanced Wireless a $7,000 fine in the death of Gerry LeClercq for one serious violation: “Employees were working on a communication tower 60 feet above the ground without any fall protection.”

Paramount appealed the fine to an administrative law judge, arguing that the fatal fall was an unforeseeable incident of employee misconduct.

A company can use unpreventable employee misconduct as a defense if it can show it had a thorough safety program which was adequately communicated and enforced and that the employee conduct was a departure from an enforced safety rule.

The record showed Paramount had:

• a well-communicated, comprehensive and properly enforced safety program that required employees to be tied off at all times on towers
• an extensive written safety policy based on industry experience and standards set by national organizations
• required that each crew member take a written test on proper climbing
• required 100% fall protection for employees
• a progressive disciplinary policy (verbal warning, written warning, suspension, termination), and
• disciplined and terminated employees for safety violations.

The record also showed that, on the day of the fatality, the foreman on duty had filled out all necessary safety paperwork required by the company’s policy and that it was signed by all employees who were on the site.

The employees were also properly supervised on the day of the incident.

For all those reasons, the judge found Paramount showed that the fatality was an unforeseeable event caused by the actions of the employee who unhooked himself from his fall protection. The citation and fine were thrown out.

(Secretary of Labor v. Paramount Advanced Wireless, Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, No. 09-0178, 6/21/10.) You can read the judge’s decision here.

One way is to correct the problem quickly, as a recent case before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) shows.

An OSHA inspector visited a worksite in Tarrytown, NY, where MVM Contracting Corp. was hired to perform construction and renovation work.

After the inspection, OSHA issued a willful violation to MVM, saying it failed to protect employees working in an excavation from a cave-in. Employees had been working in an excavation without shoring that was more than five feet deep. The penalty: $21,000.

MVM didn’t contest the citation itself, just its classification as willful. An OSHRC law judge heard the appeal and reclassified the violation as serious. The fine dropped to $2,100.

OSHA appealed to the full commission, which reinstated the willful classification and the $21,000 fine.

This is how OSHRC came to its decision: The first time he visited the MVM worksite, the inspector provided the superintendent with detailed information about OSHA’s excavation standards and told him the company was in violation.

The inspector returned four days later to find no additional protection provided in the excavation. The inspector testified that the superintendent told him employees had worked in the excavation after the first inspection without cave-in protection.

OSHRC says the superintendent’s knowledge of the excavation standard and his conscious failure to bring the worksite into compliance amounted to a willful violation.

In a nutshell: The company would have faced a fine only 1/10th the size if it would have corrected the violation before the inspector’s next visit or barred employees from entering the excavation until corrections were made.

(Secretary of Labor v. MVM Contracting Corp., OSHRC, No. 07-1350, 7/20/10.) Click here for a PDF of the OSHRC decision.

That’s the situation Sodexo, a Maryland company that provides facility management services to school districts, finds itself in.

Brian Barker was employed by Sodexo as manager of grounds keeping for the South Plainfield School District in New Jersey. Barker says he warned his managers at Sodexo about safety conditions, but the company didn’t take action. Then, Barker went to OSHA.

OSHA issued nine serious violations to Sodexo, including ones for:

• not having a working lock system on a cabinet used to store gasoline and diesel fuel
• failing to perform an assessment to determine if protective gear was needed by employees working with gasoline, diesel, weed killer and field-marking paint
• lack of safety training for workers
• failing to confirm that employees were competent to operate forklifts
• an overhead electrical junction box without an appropriate cover, and
• failing to develop, implement or maintain a hazard communication program for workers handling chemicals.

OSHA initially issued Sodexo $10,800 in fines. Sodexo recently settled the matter for $8,100.

Barker says four days after OSHA issued its findings to Sodexo, his position was eliminated without any justification, and he was fired.

Sodexo says it took immediate action to address the OSHA citations. It hasn’t issued any comment on Barker’s situation.

OSHA recently made it easier for employees to find information on the web about filing a retaliation complaint. It now has a dedicated web page with instructions on how to file a complaint at www.whistleblowers.gov

OSHA cited Danbury Hospital in Connecticut with one serious violation of the GDC for failing to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious injury to workers. In this case, the hazard is employees being injured by violent patients. The fine: $6,300.

OSHA says it identified several instances during the past 18 months in which employees in the hospital’s psychiatric ward, emergency ward and general medical floors were injured by violent patients. The agency’s report cites 25 cases in the past five years in which hospital employees lost workdays or were put on restricted duty after being injured by patients.

Police say in March, a patient, Stanley Lupienski, shot nurse Andy Hull three times. Lupienski is charged with first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, illegal discharge of a firearm and carrying a pistol without a permit. Hull hasn’t returned to work at the hospital.

OSHA says its investigation was prompted by worker complaints. The president of Danbury Nurses Union, Unit 47, Mary Consoli, says the union complained to OSHA.

Danbury Hospital says it doesn’t agree with all the details of OSHA’s report, but it won’t contest the citation. The hospital says it’s already made changes to its security system.

OSHA recommended the hospital create a written violence prevention program that includes hazard assessment, prevention strategies, staff training, incident reporting and periodic review.

OSHA’s website notes that there is no regulation regarding workplace violence, but the GDC can apply.

OSHA’s guidelines for preventing workplace violence for health care and social workers can be found here.

Did OSHA make the right decision to cite the hospital for a GDC violation involving workplace violence? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below. Also, take our poll on OSHA’s use of the GDC on our home page.

Eleven people were injured at a July 4th fireworks display in Palmyra, PA, and now OSHA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are investigating.

One 17-year-old needed skin grafts for burns on the back of his legs. Eight of the 10 others injured were treated and released at a local hospital. Two others were held overnight for observation. The injured suffered burns, cuts and bruises.

State police say when one of the fireworks didn’t ignite properly, it exploded inside a discharge tube. That caused surrounding discharge tubes to fail. The fireworks inside the tubes exploded, sending burning material into the crowd.

OSHA will investigate whether the company that put on the display, Schaefer Pyrotechnics of Ronks, PA, followed all required safety procedures.

Schaefer was fined $8,100 by OSHA for a July 4, 2004, fireworks mishap in Pittston, PA. About two dozen people were injured.

In 2007, during a fireworks show put on by Schaefer in Vienna, VA, a rogue mortar launched and injured 11 people. No OSHA violations were issued in that incident.

In both of those incidents, faulty fireworks were blamed. The company uses fireworks manufactured in China. It says it tests them regularly and visits the factory where they’re made in China.

Kimmel Schaefer Jr., owner of the company, said in the week around July 4, it launched 1,800 fireworks and only one malfunctioned. He said the company uses a 240-foot safety zone around the launch site, 30 feet more than required.

In slightly over two months, the agency has fined seven USPS facilities all over the country almost $2.3 million for various safety violations.

April 30: A Providence, R.I., facility is hit for $558,000, primarily for electrical and lockout/tagout hazards. Employee complaints precipitated the investigation.

May 10: A Bedford Park, Ill., processing center is assessed $210,000 for electrical and protective equipment hazards. Again, employee complaints led to the inquiry.

May 10: A Denver distribution center is fined $217,000. OSHA said employees were testing live electrical equipment and without adequate training or PPE.

June 8: A Pittsburgh processing facility is billed $299,500 for electrical hazards, inadequate training, failure to protect employees from arc-flash hazards and electrical current, and failure to use appropriate safety signs and symbols.

June 8: On the other side of the state, two Philadelphia facilities are fined $497,000. OSHA found inadequately trained employees working without PPE.

June 21: In Portland, Ore., a processing and distribution center is fined $77,500 for electrical hazards, lockout/tagout violations and inadequate PPE.  Employee complaints led to the investigation.

June 28:  A Scarborough, Me., facility is fined a whopping $430,000 for exposing workers to electrical hazards, arc flashes and arc blasts.

With the U.S. Postal Service already having trouble making ends meet, this new trend can’t be helping.

But OSHA’s message seems clear: No matter how tight money is, scrimping on safety is never acceptable.

Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) has issued a record $1.03 million fine to poultry processor Allen Family Foods.

MOSH inspected the company’s facility in Hurlock after an employee suffered a serious hand injury reaching beneath an unguarded conveyor belt.

State officials say Allen has ignored warnings to improve a dangerous workplace for more than a decade.

Allen Family Foods has been inspected 16 times at two locations in Maryland since 1998. Seven inspections were after incidents, and MOSH issued a total of 192 violations.

Other incidents have included cuts on employees’ hands and arms. Among previous citations against Allen were ones for lack of safety training.

Allen VP of human resources Tracy Morris said, “The citation in this case is not an accurate reflection of our safety record. Rather, we think it is the result of MOSH’s adoption of a more aggressive enforcement policy.”

The company plans to contest the fines.

The million-dollar fine is the result of 51 violations, including one categorized as egregious and 15 as willful.

It’s the largest MOSH fine in Maryland history.

NDK Crystals has 15 business days to decide whether to contest the fines.

The explosion at the company’s crystal manufacturing facility took the life of a truck driver parked at a nearby service station.

OSHA says NDK knowingly operated high pressure vessels even after being warned of the potential for catastrophic failure due to fabrication defects.

NDK received seven willful OSHA violations, one for each of the seven high pressure vessels in operation.

OSHA also issued five serious violations for failing to:

• evaluate the building for a catastrophic event
• have an emergency evacuation program
• implement a hazard communication program
• provide PPE, and
• provide training certification.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is also investigating the explosion to find its root causes.

OSHA has filed 23 willful violations against the South Dakota Wheat Growers Association of Aberdeen, SD, for a fatality at its McLaughlin grain handling facility.

Steve Lee died Dec. 22, 2009, when he climbed inside a bin to see why the flow of grain had slowed. Lee was engulfed and smothered.

Co-workers tried to rescue him. OSHA says its investigation determined that five workers were also at risk of being engulfed when they were sent to rescue Lee. That added to the amount of the fines against the company.

An OSHA official says Lee was directed to enter the bin while it was being emptied — a common practice for the company, according to the agency’s investigation.

Earlier last year, another SD Wheat Growers employee died in a forklift incident at a different company facility.

The company is reviewing the citations. It has 15 days to decide whether to contest them.

The citations against the company include violations of confined space and grain handling standards.

Earlier this month, OSHA fined a Mississippi shipbuilder $1.32 million. That case also involved confined space violations. Two workers died in that incident.

What do you think about OSHA’s larger penalties in the last 18 months? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

VT Halter Marine, a shipbuilder, faces $1.32 million in fines in connection with a November 2009 explosion and fire in Escatawpa, MS, that killed two workers and seriously injured two others. The two injured workers both received third-degree burns.

OSHA cited the company for 17 willful violations, including failure to:

• inspect and test a confined space before entry
• prevent entry into confined spaces where the concentration of flammable vapors exceed the prescribed limits, and
• use explosion-proof lighting in a hazardous location.

VT Halter also faces 11 serious violations, including lack of machine guarding and use of defective electrical equipment.

The company has 15 days to decide whether to contest the fines.

The explosion happened aboard a tugboat as a crew was cleaning and prepping a tank for painting.

ERA Valdivia Contractors, Inc., of Chicago, faces $130,300 in OSHA fines for exposing workers to dangerous materials containing lead.

Following a November 2009 inspection, OSHA cited the company with two willful violations ($112,000 in fines) for failing to provide adequate personal protective equipment to employees working in and around lead while performing abrasive blasting and painting.

The company also faces eight serious citations ($18,300 in fines) for failure to:

• ensure workers use respirators in accordance with the conditions of certification
• prohibit use of respirators by employees with facial hair, and
• provide a clean changing area for employees.

ERA Valdivia has 15 days to decide whether to contest the fines.

OSHA has inspected the company 25 times since 1991 and issued numerous willful, serious and repeat violations, including ones for lead hazards.

ABC News included the video as part of a Nightline story on workplace safety and OSHA.

OSHA fined Cintas $2.75 million for violations of safety rules involving the dryers, a result of investigations after Gomez’s death.

The ABC News piece is worth watching for another reason: In it, OSHA administrator David Michaels says, “There is an epidemic of programs that discourage workers from reporting injuries.”

He mentioned incentive programs that reward workers when there are no reported injuries.

The piece goes on to tell the story of two Smurfit-Stone workers who say they were directly discouraged from reporting workplace injuries by their supervisors.

Michaels made it clear OSHA is looking for companies that hide injuries. “We know we’re not getting accurate figures, and we need to do something about that,” Michaels said.

Does your company have a safety incentive program that rewards employees for something other than a lack of injuries? Let us know about it in the Comments Box below.

OSHA cited Birdair, Inc., of Amherst, NY, for the incident in which two workers slid about 260 feet down the side of the domed roof. One of the workers suffered head and chest trauma and a broken leg. The other hurt his back.

Birdair faces $45,000 in fines for:

• one willful violation for employees not wearing the correct fall protection equipment, and
• one serious violation for workers not trained about hazards associated with falls.

Birdair says it will contest the citations.

An OSHA spokeswoman told the Star-Telegram that the workers were wearing fall protection gear, but it wasn’t tied off in accordance with OSHA standards.

The injured men were among employees finishing work on the stadium’s fabric roof panels.

It’s too often a matter of life or death.

OSHA has fined Buckhorn, Inc. $116,000 in connection with a Oct. 7, 2009 fatality at its Springfield, MO, plant.

Tobby Hall, a 31-year-old father of four, was inside a plastic injection molding machine. However, a co-worker thought Hall had gone to get a tool.

The co-worker started the machine, and Hall was crushed to death.

OSHA says the workers shouldn’t have been allowed to work on the machine without it being locked and tagged out.

Buckhorn has been cited for one willful and 15 serious violations.

The willful violation is for failure to ensure the plastic injection molding machine was locked out when employees were performing maintenance inside the machine.

OSHA also found a variety of serious violations involving obstructed emergency exits, confined spaces and a lack of training.

That’s what happened at Ohio Decorative Products in Spencerville, OH. Now the company also faces $91,000 in OSHA fines.

A worker was scalped when his hair was entangled in an unprotected rotating shaft on a piece of equipment. He was first taken to a local hospital then flown to one in Toledo for treatment.

The company received three OSHA citations — one willful, one serious and one repeat — all for failure to provide proper machine guarding.

OSHA had inspected the company 12 times before and issued 77 citations.

“Unscrupulous employers often consider it more cost effective to pay the minimal OSHA penalty and continue to operate an unsafe workplace than to correct the underlying health and safety problem. The current penalties do not provide an adequate deterrent.”

Those words came from OSHA administrator David Michaels in his testimony in favor of the Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA).

The bill would include public employers under OSHA and increase whistleblower protections.

But the major attention has been paid to the parts of the measure that would increase OSHA fines. The bill would:

• increase the maximum penalty for knowingly violating a rule that results in the death of an employee to 10 years in prison
• increase penalties for willful or repeat violations that involve a fatality to as much as $250,000, and
• create automatic increases in fine amounts by tying them to inflation.

In his testimony before a U.S. House subcommittee, Michaels pointed out that the average OSHA fine is about $1,000. The median fine for cases in which a worker was killed is about $5,900.

Michaels went on to point out that other federal agencies have the ability to issue much larger fines for infractions that don’t include human death. For example, the Department of Agriculture can impose a $130,000 fine on milk processors for willful violations of the Fluid Milk Promotion Act. TV and radio stations can be fined $325,000 for indecent language. The EPA can issue $270,000 fines for Clean Air Act violations.

Michaels also supports PAWA’s provision to increase the number of criminal prosecutions for workplace deaths and serious injuries.

What do you think about Michaels’ assertion that OSHA penalties are too low to matter to most businesses? Should the penalties for the most egregious violations, those that result in serious injury or death, be significantly increased? What about prison time for company managers when a worker is killed on the job? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

Virginia International Terminals (VIT) has been fined $7,000 by OSHA for a serious violation. VIT didn’t implement or provide refresher training to crane operators who were involved in previous accidents or near-misses, according to the citation.

Foreman David Weiland was killed last December after a crane operator knocked over the pole which then fell across Weiland’s car.

The crane operator had been involved in several previous crashes.

Washington’s Division of Occupational safety and Health (DOSH) fined Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane $8,000 for failing to follow state and national H1N1 flu safety standards.

The Washington State Nurses Association filed a complaint against Sacred Heart. Nurses at the hospital were reporting difficulty in accessing properly fit-tested N-95 masks when treating patients with H1N1 flu.

Specific violations include:

• inadequate written respiratory protection program
• not all employees who wear N-95 respirators were fit tested or trained on an annual basis, and
• no provisions were made for men with facial hair, which can interfere with the seal of N-95 respirators.

In the first year of the Obama administration, OSHA was busy handing out fines the likes of which hadn’t been seen for eight years. Here’s our rundown of 10 significant fines from the last 12 months, and what they mean for businesses:

1. OSHA issues largest fine ever: $87.4 million to BP. This fine demonstrates OSHA’s intent to check up on companies once they’ve made serious safety mistakes. The agency evaluated BP’s progress after the 2005 fire and explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 more at its Texas City, TX refinery. OSHA issued 270 “notifications of failure to abate” and identified 439 new willful violations at the plant.
2. Two executives face prison time and huge fines in deaths of five workers. Phillipe Goutagny and James Thompson, executives with RPI Coating, each face 2.5 years in prison and a fine up to $1.25 million if convicted. On Oct. 2, 2007, vapor from a solvent ignited inside a tunnel at a hydroelectric plant in Colorado. Workers survived the blast but were overcome by smoke and fumes and died of asphyxiation. OSHA says it will work more closely with the Justice Department in cases like these to bring criminal charges against executives with penalties that include prison time.
3. OSHA wastes no time in using new per-employee citations, issues $1.2 million fine. G.S. Robbins & Co. of St. Louis, MO, was hit with 21 egregious willful citations for hazardous chemical handling. Each citation was on a per-instance basis. Even during this period of difficult economic recovery, OSHA won’t hesitate to use per-instance, per-employee fines to hike total fine amounts. This wasn’t the only instance in which OSHA used per-instance citations in 2009 (see item #7 below).
4. Company hit with $1.14 million fine following employee complaint. Are the big fines relegated only to incidents involving deaths or multiple serious injuries? Hardly. OSHA began a December 2008 inspection at Milk Specialties in Whitehall, WI, in response to an employee complaint. Willful citations were issued for the employer’s failure to comply with OSHA’s confined space and lockout/tagout regulations. OSHA is taking employee complaints seriously.
5. After two similar incidents, owner and manager go to jail. ANC Roofing of Santa Rosa, CA, owner Kenneth Alton pleaded no contest to failing to protect employees from a hazard. He was sentenced to nine months in jail and a $248,000 fine. Supervisor Robert McAfee pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor violation and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. On May 11, 2006, an ANC employee backed into an unguarded skylight and fell 21 feet to his death. Four months later, another ANC employee suffered major head trauma when he fell 19 feet from an unprotected skylight.
6. OSHA fines Wal-Mart $7,000 for worker trampling incident. A Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by a crowd of 2,000 shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008. OSHA said Wal-Mart should have recognized that its employees were exposed to being crushed by the crowd based on previous experience. Wal-Mart fought the fine. OSHA used the General Duty Clause to issue the fine and has said it will use the GDC in similar situations where safety was compromised but a specific regulation wasn’t violated.
7. Company faces $1.09 million OSHA fine for 202 willful violations. OSHA didn’t really need anyone’s permission to start issuing per-instance fines (see item #3 above), but it got the go-ahead in the form of a decision from the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC). The appeals panel ruled OSHA properly cited Smalis Painting Co. on a per-employee basis for violations of the lead-in-construction regulations, in connection with a project near Pittsburgh, PA. OSHA monitored six Smalis employees for lead exposure. Based on that data, OSHA issued violations for all employees who would have been exposed to the same hazards.
8. OSHA is getting companies to agree to implement safety and health improvements above what’s required by regulations. A-1 Excavating of Bloomer, WI, agreed to make numerous changes in its work processes in exchange for lowering fines from almost $900,000 to $470,000. A-1 has to hire a full-time safety director, develop and implement site-specific safety and health plans for all major projects, identify all job sites to OSHA before work begins for the next three years, reduce the salary of job superintendents and project managers who fail to comply with OSHA requirements, and retain a third-party safety consultant.
9. Cintas agrees to pay $3 million in fines and to comply with other conditions. In some cases, it hasn’t been an either-or situation between fines and strict safety improvements. After a worker was killed when he fell onto an unguarded conveyor and was dragged into a 300-degree industrial dryer, Cintas agreed to the huge fine and to retain a team of independent experts to develop permanent fixes and review interim controls. Cintas also agreed to hire additional safety staff, conduct more frequent internal safety inspections, and establish new systems to examine employee complaints.
10. A construction company agrees to pay $750,000 in fines and cut the pay of unsafe supervisors. Broadway Concrete of New York, NY, agreed to reduce the salaries of senior job superintendents who failed to comply with job safety practices. Broadway also agreed to hire a full-time corporate safety director, develop a new corporate safety plan, and provide OSHA with information on major projects and access to all job sites for the next four years.

What do you think of OSHA’s recent enforcement tactics? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Steven Uptegrove was killed on Aug. 20, 2009, when he and another forest service worker were loading trash from an illegal marijuana grow into sling loads that were hauled away by a Chinook helicopter.

Investigators believe rotor wash — wind generated by the helicopter’s two rotors — toppled the dead tree that hit Uptegrove.

OSHA said the forest service didn’t identify and remove dangerous trees before its employees began working in the area.

OSHA also cited Wallowa-Whitman for allowing Uptegrove to wear a hard hat that didn’t comply with current safety standards, although the agency doesn’t believe another type of hard hat would have saved him. Another citation said the forest service failed to require an employee to wear complete eye protection, such as goggles, while exposed to flying debris.

Wallowa-Whitman won’t have to pay a fine because OSHA doesn’t issue penalties to federal agencies.

Criminal prosecution of companies where safety violations cause serious injuries or fatalities are rare in the U.S. With that in mind, it’s interesting to note how such cases are handled in another democracy.

In the last seven years, more than 70 plea bargain deals have been cut in Queensland, Australia, between companies with serious workplace accidents and the state government.

The Queensland state government recently settled with an electrical contractor, Stowe Australia. One of its workers was left a paraplegic after a 2007 industrial incident. The worker was helping unload an almost 900-pound switchboard when the equipment fell on him, causing severe spinal injuries.

In exchange for dropping criminal charges, Stowe agreed to make a formal statement of regret, improve its health and safety standards, publish an article on the incident, and provide funding to the Spinal Injuries Association.

For comparison, the trucking company that was transporting the switchboard was prosecuted in court and fined $45,000.

In another case, Sea World was initially prosecuted for a workplace injury case on charges that carried a maximum penalty of two years in prison and more than $1 million in fines. The government withdrew the criminal charges. In exchange, Sea World promised to spend almost $300,000 on safety improvements.

A spokesman for the government defended the settlements, saying they “require the employer to carry out a range of safety measures that extend well beyond the original breach. They are only entered into when the benefits for workers, the industry and the community can be clearly shown.”

The spokesman said the settlements pave the way for “long-lasting and more wide-ranging safety changes.” The government totals the number of safety enhancements at companies due to these settlements at more than $17 million.

What do you think about this method of holding companies responsible for serious injuries and fatalities? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

ConAgra will pay $106,440 for 26 safety violations at the plant in Garner, NC. The state had issued fines totaling almost $135,000.

As part of the settlement agreement, ConAgra said it will screen safety compliance records of contractors working at its plant and work with them in advance to address potential safety and health hazards.

Investigators say the explosion was caused by a contract worker who improperly purged a new fuel supply line for a gas-fired water heater. That allowed gas to vent into an enclosed room.

The state has also fined the contractor, Energy Systems Analysts, $58,100. Those fines are still pending.

When the roof of the plant collapsed after the explosion, some workers were stopped in their tracks from escaping, had to turn around and fled through a warehouse.

OSHA has fined warehouse owner Lyons & Sons of Camden, NJ, $21,750 and chocolate maker Cocoa Services LP of Moorestown, NJ, $17,450. Lyons owns the building that houses Cocoa Services and manages the chocolate company.

Last summer, 29-year-old Vincent Smith II fell into a vat used for melting chocolate. He was hit by an agitator used to mix the chocolate and killed.

A co-worker slammed on an emergency shutoff switch when Smith fell in, but it was too late.

Both companies face serious violations for:

• lacking railings around floor openings or working platforms above the melting tanks
• exposing employees working on melting-tank platform to nine-foot falls, and
• failing to provide fire extinguisher training.

Lyons faces additional violations for failing to provide enclosures or guards over energized wires on melting tank boilers and failing to provide a first aid program.

The companies have 15 days to decide whether to contest the fines.

Vos Electric faced a $4,900 fine in the death of Jorge Leandro-Ramirez, who was crushed to death while operating a cherry-picker at a construction site.

OSHA had issued one serious citation in the incident. However, when OSHA had an informal settlement meeting with the company, Vos presented sufficient evidence that convinced OSHA to delete the citation and penalty.

An OSHA official said the fatality occurred despite training provided by the company, not because of a lack of training.

No one else was injured in the incident.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Inspector General has announced its audit targets for 2010. On the list, “Impact of OSHA’s Penalty Reductions.”

OSHA’s penalty structure is designed to provide companies with an incentive to correct violations.

Reductions in fines can come from several sources. An inspector can recommend discounts to the original fine amount. OSHA supervisors, including area directors, regional administrators and Department of Labor attorneys can further reduce the size of a penalty, which are often significantly less than statutory maximums.

Stated audit objectives include determining whether penalty reductions encouraged companies to correct violations.

No word on exactly when the audit will be completed.

Earlier this year, acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab said OSHA’s current penalty structure wasn’t enough of a disincentive to force some companies to address safety hazards.

Do you think OSHA reduces its penalties too often? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

When a worker doesn’t use PPE and dies on the job as a result, is the employer responsible or is it a case of employee misconduct?

Here’s a recent example and how the case was decided.

Skanska Koch was hired to renovate the Triborough Bridge in New York City. On May 6, 2008, an employee fell through an uncovered hole about 37 feet to the ground and died from his injuries.

The employee wasn’t tied off. OSHA issued a serious violation fine of $3,500 for a failure to provide appropriate fall protection.

Skanska Koch appealed the fine to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, arguing this was a case of unpreventable employee misconduct.

An OSHRC administrative law judge rejected the company’s argument and upheld the fine.

The company said it had a policy that required all employees to be tied off at all times.

However, this is a written summary of rules that employees received: “All employees are required to wear a safety harness/lanyard at all times while on this jobsite. Although some work tasks may not require you to wear a harness/lanyard, you must have it with you at all times so you are always prepared to tie off when the need arises.”

The judge said that suggests there are times when employees are not required to tie off.

But that’s not the only problem the judge found with the company’s safety practices. Supervisors and safety managers testified that they conducted inspections to see if workers were using fall protection by looking up at the employees 37 feet above to see if they were tied off. The judge said that is not a reasonable method of discovering violations.

Evidence also showed that when a violation was found, supervisors didn’t effectively enforce the rule. Even though the company had a progressive enforcement plan, when a supervisor would find an employee working without being tied off, he would merely yell at them rather than report the incident for discipline. The judge said merely using verbal warnings isn’t a sufficient method of enforcing safety rules.

What do you think about this decision? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Also vote on our poll this week on workers and safety regulations on our home page.

Cite: Secretary of Labor v. Skanska Koch, Inc., OSHRC, No. 08-1623, 10/1/09. PDF of the decision available here.

On Nov. 28, 2008, Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death at Wal-Mart’s Valley Stream, NY, store as 2,000 shoppers surged inside for its annual day-after-Thanksgiving sale.

OSHA issued Wal-Mart a $7,000 fine under the General Duty Clause. The federal safety agency says employees were exposed to being crushed by the crowd due to the store’s failure to implement reasonable and effective crowd management.

Wal-Mart contested the fine, and the case will be heard before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

The giant retailer agreed to pay nearly $2 million and improve safety at its 92 New York stores as part of a deal with local prosecutors. Wal-Mart set up a $400,000 victims compensation and remuneration fund and gave $1.5 million to local social service programs and nonprofit groups.

To prevent similar incidents, OSHA recommends retailers:

• have trained security personnel or police officers on site
• set up barricades or rope lines for pedestrians and crowd control well in advance of customers’ arrival
• make sure barricades are set up so the customers’ line doesn’t start right at the store entrance
• prepare an emergency plan that addresses potential dangers, and
• have security or customer service personnel explain entrance procedures to the public.

OSHA’s full list of crowd control guidelines is available here (PDF).

Joseph Teixeira was killed at the Northern Wind facility in New Bedford, MA, while performing maintenance work inside a large, industrial, ice-making machine.

The machine was activated while Teixeira was inside, and he was caught in the moving parts. An autopsy determined the cause of death was asphyxiation because of chest compression.

OSHA found that the plant lacked procedures to power down and lock out the ice machine before employees entered it.

Northern Wind faces 19 serious and 4 other-than-serious citations. It has 15 days to contest the fines.

The previous largest penalty was also against BP after the Texas City explosion. BP signed a settlement with OSHA and agreed to pay $21 million in fines.

As part of the settlement, BP also agreed to correct violations at the plant. OSHA claims it hasn’t. It’s issued 270 citations for failure-to-abate previous violations. That totals $556.7 million in fines at a rate of $7,000 per fine times 30 days.

OSHA also found 439 new willful violations, totaling $30.7 million.

Since the 2005 incident, four more fatalities have occurred at the Texas City facility.

The New York Times reports that, in the 30 years before the 2005 explosion, there were 23 deaths at the Texas City refinery.

“The $87 million fine won’t restore those [15] lives, but we can’t let this happen again,” said U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

“BP was given four years to correct the safety issues identified pursuant to the settlement agreement, yet OSHA has found hundreds of violations of the agreement and hundreds of new violations,” said acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab.

Since the explosion, BP has settled more than 4,000 civil claims, paid from a $2.1 billion fund it set aside.

The BP refinery is the third largest in the country.

Do you think this large fine is justified against BP? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

You can also take our Quick Poll on the subject on our home page.