Company fined for weak scaffolding in fatality
March 30, 2009 by Fred HosierPosted in: cost of safety, Falls, Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Injuries, Latest News & Views, OSHA news, Who Got Fined and Why?
PDF When OSHA inspects scaffolding, it’s not enough to have erected it properly. The agency also looks at the integrity of the component parts.
OSHA has fined LandCoast Insulation, Inc., $72,000 for alleged safety violations in a scaffolding collapse that left one worker dead and six injured.
The scaffold collapsed inside a plant in Mississippi.
OSHA issued one willful citation for $63,000 for substituting weaker horizontal scaffold components.
LandCoast also faces two serious citations for $9,000 for using damaged scaffold components and for failing to provide employees with effective training.
An OSHA official says the company’s use of weaker parts directly led to the structure’s collapse and the worker’s death.
The company has 15 days to decide whether to contest the fines.
You can read more about this case here.
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Tags: Fatality, safety violations, scaffold, scaffolding collapse
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April 6th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Amazing bad parts….The easiest thing to correct. Usually it is the behavior that is the hardest part to correct. But then again this not getting/replacing of these inferior parts is a management behavior.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I understand the need to point the finger and blame, but where was the competent person who to erect and inspect the scaffolding prior to each days use?
A big problem is todays employee not telling anyone about the damaged equipment and scaffolding.
Someone hits a frame with a fork lift and is afraid to say anything.
I feel for their families.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
The particulars are not posted here and “the devil is in the details”. I have thirty years of experience in scaffolding and I suspect that what happened here was, for instance, a ten foot horizontal in place of a ten foot truss. A horizontal member is okay for a spacer, but not to be used as a bearer. When I inspect scaffold installations I see this all of the time, plus I do not see extra bracing being used per the manufacturer’s instructions and the truss can “roll”, plus the manufacturers stipulate the use of “gussets” or vertical-diagonal braces for the truss to give it even more strength. There is competent and there is scaffold competent.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Is a lack of training in scaffolding! Every employer in America, should have they employees train in all the equipment and how safely work! No accident suppose to happens, is only why this happen!
If the scaffold is need it to do a job every day, is more reason to teaching how assembling, dismantle and use it. In all places in construction, manufacturing, even electricians use scaffolding including painters, roofers and more to get access to high places, needs to be train on scaffolds…
INSPECTION in all parts is issue to did not use it if is found in bad condition! Where is the supervisor to taken in care the job? was a Job Safety Analisys (JSA) use in the workplace by someone? was important to get the job done! but who suffer the consecuencies? is too more to think about it!