"Lack of ....protections at this facility exposed workers.."

Government safety organizations are tasked with assuring “safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance.” The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog follows two government safety organizations; OSHA in the USA and the H&SE in the United Kingdom. Both organizations have done a great job in recent years in producing safety information that is both educational and informative. In the past government organizations primarily produced the rules. Now a days in addition to the producing the rules these two organizations (and many others) have developed all sorts of educational literature that are great. Nevertheless, many in our industry have an adversarial relationship with government safety organizations. Here is a story from earlier in 2015 highlighting the enforcement side of government safety organizations:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed fines totaling of more than 52,000 € for safety and health violations at the aluminium extrusion manufacturing facility in in the Midwest United States.

An investigation in late 2014 found safety and health violations at the plant, including a sander and multipurpose press in the fabrication area that lacked proper safety mechanisms, exposing workers to amputation and other serious hazards, OSHA said in a statement announcing the proposed penalties. The same plant was cited for a similar violation in 2013, according to OSHA, which is part of the United States Department of Labor.

Other violations found in the 2014 investigation included electrical hazards and unsecured shelving and storage units, OSHA said. 

“Lack of worker protections at this facility exposed workers to serious and life-altering injuries,” the OSHA’s area director said in the statement. “The extrusion company has a responsibility to protect workers from known hazards at its jobsite, and the number of violations there demonstrates a lack of commitment to that obligation.”

An extrusion company representative said the company will be meeting with OSHA next week to discuss the matter.

"We disagree with OSHA’s characterization of the alleged hazards described in the release, and in particular, that we have exposed our workers to amputation hazards," the company said in a release. "We will vigorously defend itself against these claims. The health and safety of our employees remains our top priority and we look forward to working with OSHA to that end."

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog chose not to name the extrusion company because they have the right to argue against the fines. Regardless, all of the items cited above have been listed previously in incidents on this blog.

It appears that a common citation for aluminium extrusion companies is “proper safety mechanisms” on extrusion presses. Is that because extrusion presses are designed poorly. No they are not designed poorly. In our opinion what has occurred is common to older equipment. Simply older equipment does not have current safety mechanisms on it. Unless it was retrofitted. There are many examples in the extrusion industry where presses and other equipment have been retrofitted with the latest safety mechanisms. The Aluminium Times Magazine had an article about this same topic.

Please comment.