The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) issued COVID-19 “general duty" citations to 19 different businesses with serious violations for failing to uphold safety and health workplace guidelines, potentially putting workers in harm’s way.
California’s workplace safety regulator has cited a frozen food manufacturer and its temporary employment agency for failing to protect hundreds of employees from the coronavirus at two Los Angeles area plants.
OSHA has cited Martin-Pinero CPM LLC – a construction contractor based in Atlanta, Georgia – for exposing employees to fall hazards after a fatal incident at a highway construction project in Atlanta. The company faces $170,020 in penalties.
Many of the OSHA cases that cite “willful” violations present mysteries. The mysteries are why the alleged violations were categorized as willful. These charges are not a mystery to OSHA, but they are mysteries to readers of citations. Since the penalty for a willful violation can be over $130,000, there should not be any mystery about such charges.
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.
An OSHA investigation opened after a construction fatality has resulted in $212,396 in proposed penalties against the worker’s employer.
The incident that prompted the inquiry occurred when a 2,600-pound rock dislodged from the building’s foundation and fatally struck a worker who was helping install permanent foundation supports beneath the Woburn Public Library in Woburn, Massachusetts.
OSHA has cited Carl Cannon Inc., an automobile dealership, for serious safety violations after three employees died and two were injured at its Jasper facility.
OSHA initiated an investigation in response to a flash fire. Inspectors determined that the employees were using a flammable brake wash to scrub the service pit floor when the fire occurred. As a result, three employees were fatally injured, and a fourth was critically burned. A fifth employee was treated for smoke inhalation and released.
