A 24-year-old temporary maintenance employee sustained severe burns from electrical shock while on assignment for Parallel Employment Group of Wisconsin Inc. Working at the Arvato Digital Services LLC distribution center in Pleasant Prairie, Wisc., the employee came in contact with an energized electrical source and suffered electrical shock.
Wisc. worker's injury due to OSHA standard violation
August 22, 2013
A Wisconsin company that protested paying extra worker’s compensation under the state’s safe place statute failed to convince an appeals court that federal law preempts law requiring employers to pay penalties when workplace safety violations cause injuries.
Echo Lake Foods Inc. has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration with 27 safety violations carrying fines of $150,000. Multiple violations of OSHA's process safety management standards for facilities that use highly hazardous chemicals were found at the company's Burlington and Franksville frozen food production plants.
OSHA has proposed fines of $721,000 against Cooperative Plus Inc. in Burlington for violations of federal workplace safety standards, according to an agency press release. OSHA alleges that this employer, a farmer owned cooperative, exposed workers to the risk of being engulfed and suffocated in grain storage bins without proper equipment and procedures. In a near tragedy that occurred in February, a worker was trapped in soybeans up to his chest in 25 degree weather and ultimately rescued after a four-hour ordeal.
In another sign of OSHA’s pumped up enforcement posture, the agency last week banged Milk Specialties Co. in Whitehall, Wisc., with multiple violations of federal workplace safety and health standards and proposed $1,145,200 in penalties.