OSHA boosting oversight
- Staffing firms must take heed of increased inspections by OSHA.
- The agency launched a Temporary Worker Initiative to assess whether staffing firms should be cited for violations at host employer worksites.
- OSHA is focused on making sure that personal protective equipment is provided to temporary workers and that temporary workers have required training.
- Staffing firms should take steps to ensure they and their clients remain ready for OSHA inspections and abide by all relevant safety regulations to avoid fines.
Georgia firm cited after fatal fall
- An employee at East Coast Crawl LLC – operating as Crawlspace Medic of Savannah, Ga. — suffered fatal electrocution while digging a shallow drainage trench under a home.
- OSHA found that the remediation company might have prevented the incident by following the required safety standards.
- The 32-year-old lead repair technician came into contact with an electrical line on April 18, 2022, as they installed a drain to remove accumulating water.
- OSHA cited the company for not making sure to de-energize electrical lines before allowing employees to work and dig within the danger zone, and has proposed $31,284 in penalties.
OSHA expands severe violators program
- OSHA has expanded its Severe Violator Enforcement Program, which focuses on inspecting employers who have repeatedly violated federal health and safety laws.
- Previously, investigators would place an organization in the program if it did not meet a number of limited standards, including deadly cases, cases with three or more hospitalizations, and egregiously-classified enforcement actions.
- The expansion focuses on repeat offenders and expands the standards to include all safety violations, which means employers from additional industries could be brought into the program.
- Employers with citations for at least two willful or repeated violations and firms that receive failure-to-abate notices for serious violations will be placed in the program.
No citations after an Illinois explosion
OSHA will issue any citations after a grain bin explosion at the BioUrja ethanol plant in Peoria, Ill.
Two employees were injured while patching a hole in the bucket elevator when they noticed a hole in the largest of the grain bins, which collapsed and then a fireball occurred.
One of the employees went to the hospital for smoke inhalation, while the other suffered a minor burn to his right hand.
OSHA found that no standards were violated that night, and employees took the correct precautions by shutting other equipment down and trying to draw grain out of the bin.