Federal Government has 36,000 ‘Open-Risk’ Conditions in Its Properties

• The General Services Administration’s federal real estate unit has a decade-old backlog of unresolved occupational health and safety, and fire risk conditions at public buildings across the country, according to its inspector general.
• Following a June 2023 hotline complaint to the inspector general that alleged GSA was in violation of OSHA regulations, the watchdog conducted an assessment to address the complaint, ultimately receiving a database of 35,955 actionable, open-risk conditions from the GSA’s Public Buildings Service, some dating as far back as Oct. 1, 2013.
• “Data shows that there are nearly 36,000 actionable, open-risk conditions at almost 2,000 GSA-managed assets nationwide,” the inspector general said. 
• “The same data shows that there are more than 5,000 open-risk conditions that were not corrected or did not have an abatement plan in place within the 30-day period required by OSHA regulations.”
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Minnesota Levies Biggest Fine in Tanker Truck Death

• Minnesota’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has levied a record $621,000 in fines against trucking firm Wayne Transports in connection with the March death of an employee in a tanker truck.
• The bulk cargo carrier was cited for 12 serious safety violations, most of them resulting in fines of $67,200 each. The cumulative amount was almost $250,000 more than the previous highest fine levied by the state. 
• The citations levied are for violation of rules regulating work in confined spaces.
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$25 Million for Injury at Amazon Site With Alleged Bogus Safety Logs

• New York’s Bordone Construction will pay a $25 million settlement to a worker who suffered a serious head injury during the renovation of a Brooklyn warehouse that is now an Amazon shipping facility.
• The settlement was in a lawsuit that alleged the contractor created bogus safety logs to falsely claim the site was deemed safe before the accident.
• In its defense of the suit, Bordone submitted safety-log entries containing the purported signature of a licensed construction-site supervisor who said that she was not part of the demolition work and denied signing the logs.
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Mine Safety Agency Cites ‘Troubling Number’ of Findings in July Inspections

• The Mine Safety and Health Administration completed impact inspections at 16 mines in 10 states in July 2024, issuing 239 violations and one safeguard, including 70 violations deemed significant and substantial and 11 unwarrantable failures.
• The agency completed these inspections at mines in Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
• “July impact inspections resulted in a troubling number of unwarrantable failure findings, representing serious safety and health hazards that operators knew put miners at risk and should have corrected,” said Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health Chris Williamson.
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