After signing settlement agreement, Minnesota firm in trouble again
- After signing a 2021 settlement agreement with the U.S. Labor Dept., including a promise to protect its employees from potentially deadly trenching and excavation hazards, a Minnesota construction contractor was again found endangering employees as they replaced a residential water main and 20 separate curb stop valves for house connections in Minot.
- Wagner Construction Inc. pledged to improve its safety procedures and training in a comprehensive agreement with OSHA to resolve violations of federal workplace safety regulations after agency inspectors cited the company at three North Dakota job sites in 2019 and 2020 for exposing employees to excavation hazards.
- Wagner Construction’s pledges are now under investigation after OSHA inspectors, responding to a complaint, discovered unprotected trenches in Minot and agency inspectors learned that the company exposed workers to trenching hazards at its work sites.
- In total, OSHA cited Wagner Construction Inc. for 16 repeat violations and one serious violation. The company now faces $1.8 million in proposed penalties.
Read more
Department of Justice Supports OSHA’s right to issue safety rules
- The U.S. Department of Justice ruled Ohio construction company that tried to dissolve five decades of OSHA safety rules shouldn’t get a second shot at an appeals court hearing.
- Several federal appeals courts and the US Supreme Court have recognized that the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act empowered the agency to regulate workplace safety.
- The Acr also restricts how far OSHA rules could go, the DOJ said in papers filed with the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Tuesday.
- However, environmental, worker groups are concerned about the broader impact of the rule.
Read more
Oregon OSHA Workers’ Memorial Scholarship awards taking applications
- Oregon OSHA has announced that a scholarship fund that helps finance higher education for family members of Oregon workers who have been fatally injured or permanently disabled on the job is open for applications,
- The Workers’ Memorial Scholarship awards are available to any high school graduate, graduating high school senior, GED recipient, or current college undergraduate or graduate student who is a dependent or spouse of an Oregon worker who has been fatally injured or permanently disabled while on the job.
- The Oregon Office of Student Access and Completion (OSAC) – part of the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission – handles applications for the Workers’ Memorial Scholarship.
- The office is accepting applications for the 2024-25 academic year. Applications are due April 1, 2024.
Read more
Dollar General, gunman’s parents sued in Florida store shooting
- A wrongful death lawsuit was filed by the family of three Black people killed in a racially-motivated shooting at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida. The suit alleges the retailer e and the gunman’s parents were negligent in the incident.
- Fed-OSHA has launched an investigation of Dollar General’s safety protocols and procedures.
- The lawsuit accuses Dollar General of failing to take measures to keep customers and employees safe.
- It also accuses the parents of the suspected gunman, Ryan Christopher Palmeter, of failing to protect the public from reasonably foreseeable criminal acts that were likely to be committed by their son.
Read more