OSHA supplements efforts to address serious workplace danger

• OSHA launched a new initiative focused on enhancing enforcement and providing compliance assistance to protect workers in the engineered stone fabrication and installation industries.
• This initiative will focus enforcement efforts on industry employers to make sure they’re following required safety standards and providing workers with the protections required to keep them healthy.
• It establishes procedures for prioritizing federal OSHA inspections to identify and ensure prompt abatement of hazards in covered industries where workers face exposure to high levels of silica dust.
• OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health identify silica dust exposure as a health hazard for workers involved in manufacturing, finishing, and installing natural and manufactured stone, which includes man-made, engineered artificial or cultured types.
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Death of project manager leads to fines in Oklahoma

• An OSHA investigation found that a Caney contractor could have prevented a trench collapse that fatally injured a project manager at a McAlester work site in May 2023.
• The project manager and other workers employed by Rocking L Dozer and Land Management LLC were putting gravel rock around a newly replaced 24-inch sewer line in a 10-foot-deep excavation when the trench collapsed.
• OSHA determined that — by not following federal safety standards for trenching and excavation work — the company exposed its employees to trench hazards.
• The agency has proposed $82,149 in penalties.
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Pennsylvania dumpster company cited

• OSHA found a Pennsylvania manufacturer of steel containers exposed employees to a wide range of safety and health hazards at its Milton facility.
• An investigation at Custom Container Solutions led to citations for two willful, three repeat, 23 serious and two other-than-serious violations.
• OSHA found several deficiencies that exposed employees to potential harm.
• Custom Container Solutions faces $484,401 in proposed OSHA penalties.
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Ohio company faces $154,696 in fines

• A Toledo, Ohio-based company faces $154,696 in federal fines relating to allegations it willfully failed to protect employees from fall hazards in July at a North Baltimore job site.
• Employees of steel and precast concrete erection provider Henry Gurtzweiler are alleged to have been exposed to 36-foot falls while installing insulation and metal decking, OSHA.
• Employees were not protected from fall hazards by guardrail systems, safety net systems, personal fall arrest systems, positioning device systems, or fall restraint systems, the safety agency reported.
• The company is contesting the allegations.
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