When I was a young boy, I marveled at the time and effort my mother put into her annual spring-cleaning. Mom planned a great deal – shopping for her supplies early to make sure that she never had to start and stop once she got moving. And mom was really focused on every detail of cleaning the windows, walls, floors, and all of the furniture.
OSHA’s annual evaluation of state workplace safety agencies found a wide range of problems and shortcomings in the state programs, including inadequate enforcement staffing, low fines, poor investigative procedures of whistleblower complaints, slow response to complaints and failure to verify that employers had corrected violations for which they had been cited.
A Rochester, NY contractor who disposed of asbestos illegally, exposed untrained workers to the substance and lied to an OSHA inspector has been sentenced to six years in prison.