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OSHA has cited five contractors for safety and health violations after three employees were fatally injured and two others critically injured following an explosion onboard a towboat in Calvert City, Kentucky. These five companies have collectively received 55 of violations with proposed penalties totaling $795,254.
On July 23, 2018, OSHA’s 1-month delay of enforcement of alleged violations of the agency’s Respirable Crystalline Silica Standard for General Industry/Maritime (29 CFR 1910.1053) came to an end. During that period, OSHA inspectors were instructed to provide compliance assistance in lieu of enforcement to employers whom inspectors believed were making a good-faith effort to […]
In November 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that injury and illness rates among workers at meat and poultry slaughter and processing plants declined from 2004 through 2015 but that in 2015, the industry still had the 8th-highest number of severe injury reports of all industries. The GAO reported on several areas where […]
In a data brief, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) reports that under the Trump administration, OSHA’s enforcement totals have steadily fallen. According to the NELP, the decrease in OSHA inspectors during the same period “has clearly led” to the enforcement decline.
Enforcement actions OSHA took against a New England roofing company in 2011 and 2015 appear to have had no impact on the company’s willingness to improve safety conditions for its employees and pay approximately $400,000 in penalties for alleged violations of OSHA’s regulations.
Occasionally, when OSHA issues new or revised standards, there are two dates of importance for employers subject to those standards. The first is the date OSHA will make compliance mandatory. The second is the date OSHA states it will begin enforcing noncompliance. In some cases, the two dates may be the same. But with standards […]
Consistent with the opinion issued in September 2016 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for DC Circuit (Agricultural Retailers Association and the Fertilizer Institute v. U.S. Department of Labor), OSHA has announced that it will not issue citations under its Process Safety Management (PSM) standard for certain wholesalers of agricultural products.
OSHA has cited C & D Technologies Inc. for exposing employees to lead and failing to implement an effective lead management program. The Milwaukee battery manufacturer faces proposed penalties of $147,822 for two repeated and six serious violations.
One day before it was scheduled to begin enforcing its 2017 standard to protect workers from exposure to beryllium, OSHA announced that it will delay enforcing many of the standard’s provisions.
OSHA has cited All Power Construction Corp. and staffing agency Labor Finders of Tennessee Inc. after a temporary employee installing sewer lines at an Alabama work site suffered a fatal injury in a trench collapse. All Power Construction Corp. faces $139,684 in proposed penalties and Labor Finders of Tennessee Inc. faces the maximum allowed $12,934 […]