The family of a Kentucky man killed in a workplace incident has filed a lawsuit against his employer, GE Appliances, and other parties. Steve Herring, who’d worked for the company for more than two decades, died in February after being pinned by machinery while working on a refrigerator-building assembly line. News sources are reporting that the state OSHA’s investigation into the fatality found that it could have been caused by an inadvertent activation of an improperly positioned gate interlock control.
After two separate inspections, OSHA has cited ArcelorMittal Cleveland LLC for exposing employees to falls. The agency has proposed $222,579 in penalties.
OSHA inspected the steel plant after an employee suffered multiple fractures and a partial amputation of his right leg from a fall in June 2019.
Dollar Tree gets hit with a new set of the same old violations, Exxon loses a legal bid to keep refinery blast info from the CSB and nominations open for National Safety Council awards for safety professionals. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
OSHA has again cited Chanell Roofing and Home Improvement LLC – based in Cleveland, Ohio – for exposing employees to fall hazards. The company faces penalties totaling $200,451 for violations of OSHA’s fall protection standards at two separate jobsites in Avon, Ohio. OSHA inspectors cited the company for two willful violations for failing to install and require the use of a guardrail, safety net, or personal fall arrest system while employees worked on residential roofs.
There are so many boxes at Dollar Tree stores that workers are always running out of room. The boxes form unstable piles that block aisles, reach precarious heights and, most seriously, block emergency exits. At one store, inspectors found that an employee was injured and needed help when boxes fell on them. Another time, an OSHA inspector was videotaping conditions in a store when a tower of boxes tumbled and nearly hit another worker.
The OSHA citations Dollar Tree Stores just received for exposing employees at its stores in Alabama and Connecticut to workplace hazards should feel familiar to the national retailer. The company “has an extensive history of similar violations and continues to show a disregard for safety measures designed to keep employees safe on the job,” said OSHA Mobile Area Director Jose Gonzalez.
OSHA has cited Dana Railcare – based in Wilmington, Delaware – for confined space hazards after an employee fatality in Pittston, Pennsylvania. The railcar service provider faces $551,226 in proposed penalties. An employee was asphyxiated in May 2019, while servicing a rail car containing crude oil sludge. OSHA cited the company for four willful and three serious violations for failing to protect employees from the hazards of entering permit-required confined spaces, and inadequate respiratory protection procedures.
When OSHA inspectors saw employees of Blue Nile Contractors, Inc. exposed to trenching and excavation hazards while installing water lines at a Kansas City, Missouri jobsite, it wasn’t a first for the company. Among the violations arising from that May 2019 inspection were four repeat violations, along with five serious ones – with proposed penalties of $210,037.
A new report from USA Today on Tesla’s “gargantuan” four-year-old battery factory in Nevada finds that worker injuries at the Gigafactory occur “on a routine basis: at least three a month.” OSHA inspectors were on-site more than 90 times in the facility’s first three years of operation.
The following are recent OSHA enforcement cases around the country, including a Texas company cited after fatality, Two Florida roofing companies cited for exposing employees to fall and other hazards, Athens, Georgia Dollar Tree Store, and a Missouri food flavoring manufacturer.
