Two complaints about workplace violence at a Colorado nursing home led OSHA investigators to uncover many more incidents – not all of them reported.
The investigation at the Pioneer Health Care Center in Rocky Ford was opened in August 2017, based on two complaints. OSHA subsequently identified five documented incidents of workplace violence in 2017 that resulted in employee injuries, along with several unreported incidents.
Koch Foods of Gainesville, LLC., was cited for exposing employees to amputation hazards; and failing to provide fall protection, identify which employees were using hazardous energy control locks, and train employees exposed to noise hazards. Proposed penalties total $208,977.
After an employee was injured while conducting maintenance on equipment, OSHA inspectors found machine safety violations at Supplyside USA, a New Lenox, Illinois-based pallet manufacturer. The company faces $91,832 in proposed penalties for two repeated, six serious, and three other-than-serious violations.
OSHA investigators have determined that Spirit Aerosystems Inc. exposed employees to airborne concentrations of hexavalent chromium nearly double the permissible exposure limit. Hexavalent chromium is a known carcinogen.
The Kansas-based aircraft manufacturer faces proposed penalties totaling $194,006 for one willful and five serious violations.
Last October, Melissa Stephens went to work on third shift at Autonium in Jeffersonville, Indiana. She never came home to her husband of 20 years or her four children. Stephens had apparently gone through the interlocked gate, to put a fiber pad over a broken seal. But a spinning belt and pully dragged her into a machine where she was crushed to death.
A Georgia poultry processor exposed its employees to amputation, fall and noise hazards, according to OSHA, which has cited Gainesville-based Koch Foods for multiple safety and health violations at its poultry processing plant. The company faces proposed penalties of $208,977.
OSHA has cited Supplyside USA of Lenox, Illinois for machine safety violations after an employee was injured while conducting maintenance on equipment. The pallet manufacturer faces $91,832 in proposed penalties for two repeated, six serious, and three other-than-serious violations.
Serious injuries to two employees brought OSHA inspectors to a vinyl floor manufacturing facility in Fostoria, Ohio, where they found multiple safety violations. Nox US LLC, an Ohio manufacturer of luxury vinyl tile, now faces $514,236 in proposed penalties and has been placed in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program. Both injuries occurred in June 2017.
On Jan. 2, civil penalty amounts for violations of workplace safety and health standards increased by two percent from last year. In accordance with the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, the Department of Labor is required to adjust penalties for inflation each year.
One sign that anti-OSHA conservatives are getting nervous about articles (and television appearances) highlighting the declining number of OSHA inspectors are articles questioning whether government plays a useful role in protecting workers. In this case, the Reason Foundation, which “advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law,” has concluded that reducing the number of OSHA inspectors has no effect on workplace safety.
