NY Roofing Contractor Sent to Prison for Failing to Protect Employee
- A New York roofing contractor was sentenced to four months in prison for failing to protect an employee who fell to his death.
- Jose Lema, the founder and principal owner of ALJ Home Improvement, was sentenced last week in a federal court that found that in 2022, he sent four employees without fall protection to install a roof on a three-story building. One of them died in a fall at the site.
- “Jose Lema endangered the safety of his workers by disregarding regulations and failing to ensure his employees used fall protection systems,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said.
- Williams said that the sentence “should send a message to small businesses that failure to comply with safety regulations endangers workers and can lead to unnecessary and preventable tragedy.”
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Liberty Mutual Safety Index Ranks What’s Fueling WC Costs
- Liberty Mutual is out with its 2024 Workplace Safety Index, which ranks the top 10 causes of the most-serious workplace injuries, that the insurer said cost U.S. businesses $48 billion in the last three years.
- The injuries are those causing an employee to miss more than five days of work.
- The total cost of workplace injuries topped $58 billion, Liberty said.
- The top cause was overexertion involving outside forces, such as carrying, holding, pulling or lifting objects, which the insurer said cost about $12.5 billion a year.
- At a cost of $10 billion a year, falls on the same level — typically caused by wet floors — were the second biggest cause.
- Last year’s report included data from 2020 and the early days of the COVID-19 epidemic, leading to “exposure to other harmful substances,” including infectious disease particles, as a top cause of injury and illness costs.
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AFSCME Throws Support Behind Federal Public Service Worker Protection Act
- The country’s biggest trade union of public employees has thrown its support behind the bipartisan Public Service Worker Protection Act introduced on Friday.
- The bill, sponsored by Representatives Chris Deluzio (D-PA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), would extend OSHA safeguards to public service employees nationwide.
- In a statement, the AFSCME claimed that public workers have an injury rate 81% higher than peers in the private sector and that 23 states actively exclude public service workers from their OSHA coverage.
- The bill is also supported by the American Federation of Teachers, Communications Workers of America, and the AFL-CIO.
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