Top 5 workplace violations, according to OSHA
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited 31,643 workplace violations nationwide between September 2017 and October 2018. Here are the top 5 standards that were violated and the parts of those standards that were cited the most.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited 31,643 workplace violations nationwide between September 2017 and October 2018. Here are the top 5 standards that were violated and the parts of those standards that were cited the most.
An accident that cost an employee an arm started an OSHA investigation that has a Tallahassee excavating company facing $81,833 in proposed fines.
An email from Jimmie Crowder Excavating & Land Clearing said, “We have received the citation from OSHA and are working with them to ensure that all safety issues they cited are resolved. We really have no comments beyond that.”
In February, according to the Department of Labor, “An employee suffered an amputation after their arm was caught in a conveyor belt that started unexpectedly as an employee removed material.”
The citations directly addressing the injury in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Citation and Notification of Penalty say:
Jimmie Crowder didn’t have proper preparation — procedures, training, inspections — to make sure that machines were unplugged before anyone worked on, around or inside them.
The “conveyors and rollers on the concrete crusher were not guarded to prevent employees from having any part of their body in the point of operation, exposing employees to amputation hazards.”
A statement from OSHA Area Director Michelle Gonzalez said, “Proper safety procedures, including the effective lockout of all sources of energy, could have prevented this injury.”
According to Jimmie Crowder’s State of Florida Sunbiz entry, the company is run by Jimmie Crowder, president and secretary Tina Crowder and vice president Jason Crowder and has been registered to do business in Florida since 1973.
The company’s only other OSHA violation in the last 10 years was in 2010, a $42,000 proposed fine settled down to $21,750 while doing excavation work. There were only three citations, but one was Willful — “the employer knowingly not complying with a requirement or acting with plain indifference to employee safety” — for not having an “adequate protective system” protecting employees from cave-ins.
Since 1989, David J. Neal’s domain at the Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school animation, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors and all manner of breaking news. He drinks coladas whole. He does not work Indianapolis 500 Race Day.
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