Story updated Dec. 28, 2023 with public response from Florence Hardwoods.
A Wisconsin sawmill that had come under fire by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for employing teen workers in dangerous jobs was fined almost $1.4 million by OSHA following a teen’s death.
Florence Hardwoods LLC had already agreed to pay $190,696 in fines following a Wage and Hour Division investigation into the child labor violations after the teen worker was killed while trying to unjam a stick stacker machine.
An OSHA investigation into the June 29, 2023 incident will cost the company another $1,381,956 for eight willful, six repeat, 29 serious and four other-than-serious violations. Five of the willful citations were categorized as egregious. The company was also placed in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program.
OSHA found that Florence Hardwoods failed to train teen and adult workers in lockout/tagout safety procedures to prevent dangerous equipment from moving during service and maintenance. Fall, machine guarding and electrical hazard violations were also found, similar to violations found during a 2020 inspection of the sawmill.
Like the Wage and Hour Division investigators, OSHA inspectors found minors exposed to these hazards. The sawmill has since terminated all of the teen workers’ jobs.
Since 2019, Florence Hardwoods and its associated businesses have seen at least five employees suffer serious injuries due to lockout/tagout violations, according to OSHA. That includes a fatality at Minerick Logging where a worker was killed while servicing a trailer in 2019.
Company issues public response to OSHA allegations
On Dec. 26, 2023, Florence Hardwoods issued a statement disagreeing “with the DOL’s characterization that it allowed minors to operate dangerous machinery and perform maintenance on equipment without training on safety procedures,” according to TV 6 News.
The company said, “At no time did we intentionally put minors in harm’s way. Florence Hardwoods worked closely with the local high school to provide opportunities for students, including work programs that were sought out by the high school” and that the “youth workers were associated with what we believed were formal apprenticeship programs through the state and local high schools, as well as internships and ‘school to work’ programs set up with the local high school and Sherriff’s Department.”
The teen worker who was killed while working in the facility “will remain with us forever. His death is not due to reckless and illegal behavior. The State of Wisconsin allows minors to be employed in a planing-mill department, as do the federal regulations.”
Further, the company claimed that “although the state and federal regulations allow for minors to perform work in planing-mills and maintenance shops, the DOL treated the entirety of Florence Hardwoods’ operations as a sawmill” ignoring “the fact that the truck maintenance shop and planing-mill operations are in separate buildings, separate and distinct from the sawmill.”
Florence Hardwoods also claimed in the statement that workers do “receive safety and lockout/tagout training.” The company mentioned that OSHA’s references to issues at the other associated businesses “was inappropriate” as those “are two separate companies, located in a different state and with different management. Neither of those entities have ever employed minors at their facilities.”
“Florence Hardwoods may have made mistakes, but we did not willfully nor deliberately violate any rules or regulations,” according to the company’s statement. “We will move forward with the OSHA abatement process and address any deficiencies in our safety program, but we will not accept what we consider to be unfair and politically motivated actions on the part of the DOL.”
