OSHA Enforcement Roundup: Week of 9/30

The OSHA Enforcement Roundup gives you insight into how and why OSHA assesses penalties for workplace safe & health noncompliance. 

All violations or claims discussed below are alleged only unless we say otherwise, and we withhold the names of organizations and individuals to protect their privacy.

Check out OSHA’s latest list of the 10 most-cited safety Standards here. Your OSHA Enforcement Roundup for this week:

A shipyard employer was cited for fifteen alleged serious violations following a large fire on a commercial iron ore vessel.

OSHA inspectors found that the fire began while a worker welded off paint in the iron ore vessel’s cargo hold. Many of the other crewmembers found themselves out of harms way due to being on a lunch break.

According to the Agency, the employer failed to:

• Develop a fire safety plan.
• Provide OSHA 300 Logs and Summary Form 300As for 2021-2023.
• Train fire watch employees on the very basic elements of fighting a fire.
• Determine flammability of the preservative coating on the bulkhead before hot work.
• Ensure an employee performing hot work activities was able to communicate with an employee conducting fire watch (the two employees spoke different languages).
• Verify employees received a medical examination to ensure fitness for firefighting duties.
• Provide employees exposed to asphyxiation hazards with a self-contained breathing apparatus.

An animal food producer faces $161,332 in penalties for twenty-four alleged violations related to combustible and airborne dust.

OSHA received complaints of unsafe working conditions that led to this February 2024 inspection. Inspectors allege to have found explosion, fire, and respiratory hazards as a result of the company’s failure to evaluate spaces for dust hazards, develop a written respiratory protection program, and implement engineering controls to reduce dust.

Workers were also exposed to hazards walking and working surfaces, falls, and confined spaces. The company was cited for nineteen serious and five other-than-serious safety and health violations.

A construction contractor faces $144,505 in proposed penalties for eight alleged violations related to falls and other hazards.

The company received citations for one willful, two repeat and five serious violations. According to OSHA:

• Employees working from heights and using portable ladders did not receive training.
• Each employee working on a residential construction project with unprotected sides and edges was not protected from falling by a guardrail system, safety net system, or personal fall arrest system.
• Employees using framing nail guns and other tools did not use safety glasses.
• Employees did not wear protective helmets when there was a possible danger of head injury from impact, or from falling or flying objects, or from electrical shock and burns.

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Tags: combustible dust, fall protection, OSHA Enforcement Roundup